different between clag vs clam

English

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /klæ?/
• Rhymes: -æ?

Noun

clag (uncountable)

1. A glue or paste made from starch.
2. Low cloud, fog or smog.
   • 2001, Colin Castle, Lucky Alex: The Career of Group Captain A.M. Jardine Afc, CD, Seaman and Airman

     This programme included practice interceptions, simulator training, day flying, night flying, clag flying -- in addition to […] [a footnote states that clag flying was Air Force slang for foul weather flying.]

   • 2004, David A. Barr, One Lucky Canuck: An Autobiography

     We went along in the clag for what seemed like an eternity [a footnote defines clag as low cloud cover]

3. (railway slang) Unburned carbon (smoke) from a steam or diesel locomotive, or multiple unit.
4. (motor racing slang) Bits of rubber which are shed from tires during a race and collect off the racing line, especially on the outside of corners (c.f marbles).

   He ran wide in the corner, hit the clag and spun off.

Derived terms

• claggy

Verb

clag (third-person singular simple present clags, present participle clagging, simple past and past participle clagged)

1. (obsolete) To encumber
   • c1620:Thomas Heywood, Thomas Heywood's Art of Love: The First Complete English Translation of Ovid's Ars Amatoria

     As when the orchard boughes are clag'd with fruite

   • 1725: Edward Taylor, Preparatory Meditations

     Can such draw to me/My stund affections all with Cinders clag'd

2. To stick, like boots in mud
   • 1999: "A queen of a Santee kitchen, pre-war", quoted by Mary Alston Read Simms in the Introduction to Rice Planter and Sportsman: The Recollections of J. Motte Alston, 1821-1909

     Wash the rice well in two waters, if you don't wash 'em, 'e will clag [clag means get sticky] and put 'em in a pot of well-salted boiling water.

Anagrams

• GLAC

Manx

Etymology

From Old Irish cloc.

Noun

clag m (genitive singular cluig, plural cluig)

1. bell

Derived terms

• shamyr chluig, thie cluig (“belfry”)

Mutation

Scottish Gaelic

Etymology

From Old Irish cloc.

Noun

clag m (genitive singular cluig, plural cluig)

1. bell

Derived terms

• beum-cluig

Mutation

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /klæm/
• (æ-tensing) IPA^(key): [kle?m]
• Rhymes: -æm

Etymology 1

From Middle English clam (“pincers, vice, clamp”), from Old English clamm (“bond, fetter, grip, grasp”), from Proto-Germanic *klamjan? (“press, squeeze together”). The sense “dollar” may allude to wampum.

Noun

clam (plural clams)

1. A bivalve mollusk of many kinds, especially those that are edible; for example the soft-shell clam (Mya arenaria), the hard clam (Mercenaria mercenaria), the sea clam or hen clam (Spisula solidissima), and other species. The name is said to have been given originally to the Tridacna gigas, a huge East Indian bivalve.
2. Strong pincers or forceps.
3. A kind of vise, usually of wood.
4. (US, slang, chiefly in the plural) A dollar.

5. (slang, derogatory) A Scientologist.
6. (slang, vulgar) A vagina.
7. (informal) One who clams up; a taciturn person, one who refuses to speak.
9. (dated, US, slang) mouth (Now found mostly in the expression shut one's clam)

Derived terms

• bearded clam
• clambake
• clamshell
• clam chowder
• clam shack
• clam up
• happy as a clam

Translations

Verb

clam (third-person singular simple present clams, present participle clamming, simple past and past participle clammed)

1. To dig for clams.

Translations

See also

• clammy

Etymology 2

Noun

clam (plural clams)

1. A crash or clangor made by ringing all the bells of a chime at once.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Nares to this entry?)

Verb

clam (third-person singular simple present clams, present participle clamming, simple past and past participle clammed)

1. To produce, in bellringing, a clam or clangor; to cause to clang.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Nares to this entry?)

Etymology 3

From Middle English clammen (“to smear, bedaub”), from Old English cl?man (“to smear, bedaub”). Cognate with German klamm (“clammy”). See also clammy (“damp, cold and sticky”) and clem (“to adhere, stick, plug (a hole)”).

Adjective

clam (comparative clammer, superlative clammest)

1. (obsolete) clammy.
   • 1808, John Jamieson, An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language:

     Ice is said to be clam, when beginning to melt with the sun or otherwise, and not easy to be slid upon.

Noun

clam

1. clamminess; moisture
   • 1837, Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History

     The clam of death.

Verb

clam (third-person singular simple present clams, present participle clamming, simple past and past participle clammed)

1. To be moist or glutinous; to stick; to adhere.

   • A chilling sweat , a damp of jealousy,
     Hangs on my brows, and clams upon my limbs

2. To clog, as with glutinous or viscous matter.

Etymology 4

Noun

clam (plural clams)

1. (rowing) Alternative form of CLAM

Anagrams

• ALCM, CAML, Caml, Malc, calm

Catalan

Pronunciation

• (Balearic, Central, Valencian) IPA^(key): /?klam/
• Rhymes: -am

Noun

clam m (plural clams)

1. clamor

Synonyms

• clamor

Latin

Etymology

From Proto-Indo-European *?l-, zero-grade form of *?el- (“to hide, conceal”). Cognate to Latin c?l?.

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /klam/, [k??ä??]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /klam/, [kl?m]

Adverb

clam (not comparable)

1. clandestinely, secretly, privately
2. stealthily

Derived terms

• clancul?
• clanculum

Related terms

• clancul?rius
• clandest?n?
• clandest?nus

Preposition

clam (+ accusative, ablative)

1. (with accusative or, rarely, ablative) without the knowledge of, unknown to
   • 163 B.C.E. Terence, Heauton Timorumenos, Act II, Scene II:

     Neque ade? clam m? est.

     Nor indeed is it unknown to me.

References

• clam in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• clam in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• clam in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• clam in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette

Old English

Alternative forms

• (NE dialects) cloam

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kl??m/

Noun

cl?m m

1. mud

Declension

Old Irish

Etymology

From Proto-Celtic *klamos (“sick, leprous”). Cognate with Welsh claf (“sick, ill”).

Noun

clam m or f

1. leper

Usage notes

The noun's gender depends on the leper's gender. If the leper is male, it is masculine. If the leper is female, it is feminine.

Inflection

Descendants

• Middle Irish: clam

Mutation

References

Further reading

• Gregory Toner, Maire Ní Mhaonaigh, Sharon Arbuthnot, Dagmar Wodtko, Maire-Luise Theuerkauf, editors (2019) , “clam”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language