• vi. 撈蛤；保持沉默，閉嘴不言
• n. 蛤；沉默寡言的人；鉗子
• n. (Clam)人名；(德、西)克拉姆；(法)克朗

詞源同clamp,夾子，夾具。后用以指蛤蜊之類的雙殼軟體動物。

clam

clam: [OE] Old English clam meant ‘something for tying up or fastening, fetter’; it can be traced back to a prehistoric Germanic base *klam-, which also produced clamp [14] and is related to climb. There is a gap in the word’s history in early Middle English times, but it reappears at the end of the 14th century in the sense ‘clamp’, and in the 16th century it was applied, originally in Scotland, to the mollusc which now bears the name, apparently on the grounds that its two shells close like the jaws of a clamp or vice.
=> clamp, climb

clam (n.)

bivalve mollusk, c. 1500, in clam-shell, originally Scottish, apparently a particular use from Middle English clam "pincers, vice, clamp" (late 14c.), from Old English clamm "bond, fetter, grip, grasp," from Proto-Germanic *klam- "to press or squeeze together" (cognates: Old High German klamma "cramp, fetter, constriction," German Klamm "a constriction"). If this is right then the original reference is to the shell. Clam-chowder attested from 1822. To be happy as a clam is from 1833, but the earliest uses do not elaborate on the notion behind it, unless it be self-containment.

clam (v.)

"to dig for clams," 1630s, American English, from clam (n.). Clam up "be quiet" is 1916, American English, but clam was used in this sense as an interjection mid-14c.

1. The barnacle and the clam are two examples of filter feeders.

藤壺和蛤類是濾過覓食者的兩種例子.

來自辭典例句

2. It'started off well, but he seemed to clam up towards the end.

剛開始很, 但是最后他似乎有些沉默.

來自辭典例句

3. The movie star is a clam about her age.

這影星對她的年齡守口如瓶.

來自辭典例句

4. Everybody shuts up like a clam as soon as you mention it.

你一提及此事,大家便都閉口不言.

來自辭典例句

5. He is now as happy as a clam.

他現在相當滿足.

來自辭典例句