clam
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A piece of paper money worth one dollar.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
klamIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈklæm
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
USslangchiefly in the plural
A piece of paper money worth one dollar
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 kind of vise, usually of wood.
A crash or clangor made by ringing all the bells of a chime at once.
Burrowing marine mollusk living on sand or mud; the shell closes with viselike firmness
informal
One who clams up; a taciturn person, one who refuses to speak.
verb
To be moist or glutinous; to stick; to adhere.
To clog, as with glutinous or viscous matter.
To be hungry; starve.
Gather clams, by digging in the sand by the ocean
To produce, in bellringing, a clam or clangor; to cause to clang.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A piece of paper money worth one dollar
Used this way, clam is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in everyday conversation and social media or informal writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Very casual
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Playful
- Usage feel
- Playful and informal
Where it naturally appears
- Everyday conversation
- Social media/informal writing
Usage note
Slang: natural in speech and messages between friends, but out of place in school, work or published writing.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Informal terms for money.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Refuse to talk or stop talking.
A dip made of clams and soft cream cheese.
Chowder containing clams.
Bivalve mollusk abundant in rivers of central United States.
A large clam inhabiting reefs in the southern Pacific and weighing up to 500 pounds.
Atlantic coast round clams with hard shells.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
The shell of a clam.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.