noun
- any of various bivalve mollusks, especially certain edible species.Compare quahog, soft-shell clam.
- Informal. a secretive or silent person.
- clamminess.
- Slang. a dollar or the sum of a dollar: I only made 60 clams a week.
verb (used without object), clammed, clam·ming.
- to gather or dig clams.
Verb Phrases
- clam up, Slang. to refuse to talk or reply; refrain from talking or divulging information: The teacher asked who had thrown the eraser, but the class clammed up.
noun
- British Dialect. clamp(defs 1–3).
- Machinery. (formerly) pincers.
noun
- any of various burrowing bivalve molluscs of the genera Mya, Venus, etc. Many species, such as the quahog and soft-shell clam, are edible and Tridacna gigas is the largest known bivalve, nearly 1.5 metres long
- the edible flesh of such a mollusc
- informal a reticent person
verb clams, clamming or clammed
- (intr) mainly US to gather clams
verb clams, clamming or clammed
- a variant of clem
bivalve mollusk, c.1500, in clam-shell, originally Scottish, apparently a particular use from Middle English clam “pincers, vice, clamp” (late 14c.), from Old English clamm “bond, fetter, grip, grasp,” from Proto-Germanic *klam- “to press or squeeze together” (cf. Old High German klamma “cramp, fetter, constriction,” German Klamm “a constriction”). If this is right then the original reference is to the shell. Clam-chowder attested from 1822. To be happy as a clam is from 1833, but the earliest uses do not elaborate on the notion behind it, unless it be self-containment.
“to dig for clams,” 1630s, American English, from clam (n.). Clam up “be quiet” is 1916, American English, but clam was used in this sense as an interjection mid-14c.
In addition to the idiom beginning with clam
- clam up
also see:
- happy as the day is long (as a clam)