clam

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A sea animal with a soft body inside two hard shells, often eaten as food.

   We dug for clams along the beach at low tide.

2. 2
   verb

   To dig for clams in the sand near the sea.

   I like to clam when I am at the beach.

From Middle English clam (“pincers, vice, clamp”), from Old English clam (“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.

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