clam

/klæm/

/klæm/

Other forms: clams; clamming; clammed

A clam is a marine animal with two shells that eats by straining food from water, sand, or mud. You can sometimes find clams by digging in the sand close to the seashore.

The largest clams are used for food by humans, including the scallop, a particularly big form of clam. When you order soup in New England, it's not unlikely that it will be clam chowder, a creamy, thick stew with potatoes and pieces of clam. When clam is a verb, it means "to dig clams on the beach," and if your friend offers to pay you 1000 clams for your old car, she means "dollars."

Definitions of clam

1. noun

   burrowing marine mollusk living on sand or mud; the shell closes with viselike firmness
   types:

   Mya arenaria, long-neck clam, soft-shell clam, steamer, steamer clam

   an edible clam with thin oval-shaped shell found in coastal regions of the United States and Europe

   Mercenaria mercenaria, Venus mercenaria, hard clam, hard-shell clam, quahaug, quahog, round clam

   an edible American clam; the heavy shells were used as money by some American Indians

   geoduck

   a large edible clam found burrowing deeply in sandy mud along the Pacific coast of North America; weighs up to six pounds; has siphons that can extend to several feet and cannot be withdrawn into the shell

   jackknife clam, knife-handle, razor clam

   marine clam having a long narrow curved thin shell

   Tridacna gigas, giant clam

   a large clam inhabiting reefs in the southern Pacific and weighing up to 500 pounds

   shipworm, teredinid

   wormlike marine bivalve that bores into wooden piers and ships by means of drill-like shells

   littleneck, littleneck clam

   a young quahog

   cherrystone, cherrystone clam

   a half-grown quahog

   teredo

   typical shipworm

   Bankia setaceae, giant northwest shipworm

   giant shipworm of the Pacific coast of North America

   type of:

   bivalve, lamellibranch, pelecypod

   marine or freshwater mollusk having a soft body with platelike gills enclosed within two shells hinged together
2. noun

   flesh of either hard-shell or soft-shell clams
   types:

   hard-shell clam, quahaug, quahog, round clam

   Atlantic coast round clams with hard shells; large clams usually used for chowders or other clam dishes

   long-neck clam, soft-shell clam, steamer, steamer clam

   a clam that is usually steamed in the shell

   littleneck, littleneck clam

   a quahog when young and small; usually eaten raw; an important food popular in New York

   cherrystone, cherrystone clam

   small quahog larger than a littleneck; eaten raw or cooked as in e.g. clams casino

   type of:

   shellfish

   meat of edible aquatic invertebrate with a shell (especially a mollusk or crustacean)
3. verb

   gather clams, by digging in the sand by the ocean
   type of:

   collect, garner, gather, pull together

   assemble or get together
4. noun

   a piece of paper money worth one dollar
   synonyms: buck, dollar, dollar bill, one dollar bill

   type of:

   Federal Reserve note, bank bill, bank note, banker's bill, banknote, bill, government note, greenback, note

   a piece of paper money (especially one issued by a central bank)