clam

Plural: clams

Noun

burrowing marine mollusk living on sand or mud; the shell closes with viselike firmness
a piece of paper money worth one dollar
flesh of either hard-shell or soft-shell clams
A bivalve mollusk of many kinds, especially those that are edible; for example soft-shell clams (Mya arenaria), hard clams (Mercenaria mercenaria), sea clams or hen clams (Spisula solidissima), and other species, possibly originally applied to clams of species Tridacna gigas, a huge East Indian bivalve.
A type of strong pincers or forceps.
A kind of vise, usually of wood.
A dollar.
A Scientologist.
A vagina or vulva.
In musicians' parlance, a wrong or misplaced note.
One who clams up; a taciturn person, one who refuses to speak.
mouth (Now found mostly in the expression shut one's clam)
A crash or clangor made by ringing all the bells of a chime at once.
clamminess; moisture
Alternative form of CLAM.

Verb

Verb Forms: clammed, clamming, clams

To dig for clams or gather them from their habitat.
gather clams, by digging in the sand by the ocean
To dig for clams.
To produce, in bellringing, a clam or clangor; to cause to clang.
To be moist or glutinous; to stick; to adhere.
To clog, as with glutinous or viscous matter.
Alternative form of clem (“to starve”).

Adj

Clammy.

Examples

She knew how to CLAM for points, digging out short, high-value words from her rack.
Those sneakers cost me fifty clams!

Origin / Etymology

From Middle English clam (“pincers, vice, clamp”), from Old English clamm (“bond, fetter, grip, grasp”), from Proto-West Germanic *klammjan (“press, squeeze together”). The sense “dollar” may allude to wampum. The sense "Scientologist" alludes to the Scientologist belief that human thetans (souls) previously inhabited clams.

Synonyms

buck, dollar, dollar bill, one dollar bill

Scrabble Score: 8

clam: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Word
clam: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
clam: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary

Words With Friends Score: 11

clam: valid Words With Friends Word