Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Clam   Listen
noun
Clam  n.  Claminess; moisture. (R.) "The clam of death."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Clam" Quotes from Famous Books



... dear sort of little spot. The house is small and white, set down in a delightful little hollow that drops away from the road. Between road and house is an orchard and flower-garden all mixed up together. The front door walk is bordered with quahog clam-shells—'cow-hawks,' Janet calls them; there is Virginia Creeper over the porch and moss on the roof. My room is a neat little spot 'off the parlor'—just big enough for the bed and me. Over the head of my bed ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... seem. To his charmed ear the east wind, rising shrill, Seems through the hero's shroud to whistle still. The clock's deep pendulum swinging through the blast Sounds like the rocking of his lofty mast; While fitful gusts rave like his clam'rous band, Mixed with the accents of his high command. Slowly the stripling quits the pensive scene, And burns and sighs and weeps to be what ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... Chaucer's clum, &c., all of them spring from the same source, viz. the A.-S. clam or clom, which means a band, clasp, bandage, chain, prison; from which substantive comes the verb claemian, to clam, to stick or glue ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various

... long process of evolution from the clam to the stripling, morality was the contribution of the imitative monkey period each boy passes as he merges towards perfect manhood. A thousand supplications, commandings, and exhortations cannot accomplish what the spectacle of ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson

... rhetoric looked an uneasy fear that he was being ridiculed. "I only repeated the village notion of him," he said airily. "He may have been anything. All I know is that he was as secretive as a clam, and about as ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield

... military consistory which is employed in hunting for spies and reading other people's letters; it began to be said that the head of that Department, Sandhen, was suffering from progressive paralysis; Paty de Clam has shown himself to be something after the style of Tausch of Berlin; Picquart suddenly took his departure mysteriously, causing a lot of talk. All at once a series of gross judicial blunders came to light. By degrees people became convinced that Dreyfus had been ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... of that division of the Animal Kingdom,—without recalling to my readers a Polyp or a Jelly-Fish, a Sea-Urchin or a Star-Fish. Neither can I present the structural elements of the Mollusk plan, without reminding them of an Oyster or a Clam, a Snail or a Cuttle-Fish,—or of the Articulate plan, without calling up at once the form of a Worm, a Lobster, or an Insect,—or of the Vertebrate plan, without giving it the special character ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... huzzar!" sighed the herb-doctor, and dropping the money into the man's clam-shell of a hand turned ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville

... approached him, that my chances were but indifferent. I found him as "close as a clam." Our conversation was very ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... shows, and above all a constant and liberal distribution of corn and provisions, were the surest means of captivating the affection of the Roman people. [59] The misfortunes of civil discord were obliterated. The clam of peace and prosperity was once more experienced in the provinces; and many cities, restored by the munificence of Severus, assumed the title of his colonies, and attested by public monuments their ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... Seventy-Third Street; for scarcely had that internationally important event taken place when Mrs Birdsey, announcing that for the future the home would be in England as near as possible to dear Mae and dear Hugo, scooped J. Wilmot out of his comfortable morris chair as if he had been a clam, corked him up in a swift taxicab, and decanted him into a Deck B stateroom on the Olympic. And ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... done in the carriage, and during her whole stay at Prague she received the honors reserved for the Austrian sovereigns on grand occasions. Prince Clary was put at the head of the household chosen for her, which included besides, Counts Neipperg, von Nestitz, von Clam, Prince von Auersperg, Prince von Kinsky, Counts von Lutzow, von Paar, von Wallis, von Trautmannsdorf, ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... centuries obliterate every trace of its achievement. The wild beasts that man has kept at bay for a few centuries will in the end invade his palaces: the moss will envelop his walls and the lichen disrupt them. The clam may survive man by as many millennia as it preceded him. In the ultimate devolution of the world animal life will disappear before vegetable, the higher plants will be killed off before the lower, and finally the three kingdoms ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson

... the Clams as they lay under the sand, singing to her that she should throw him off and drown him. For these Clams were his deadly enemies. But Bootup the Whale did not understand their language, so she asked her rider—for he knew Clam—what they were chanting to her. And he ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland

... "The fellows have quizzed him about his lady, and have tried to find out who she is, and how he's connected with her, but he's close as a clam about the matter." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... period, particularly the clam along this reach of the upper Thames, was a marvel in his make-up. He was as large as he was luscious, as abundant as he was both and was a great feature in the food supply of the time. Not merely was he a feature in the food supply, but ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo

... fresh-kill'd game, Falling asleep on the gathered leaves with my dog and gun by my side. The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails, she cuts the sparkle and scud, My eyes settle the land, I bend at her prow or shout joyously from the deck. The boatman and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for me, I tucked my trouser-ends in my boots and went and had a good time; You should have been with us that day ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various

... Cod, gaunt and hungry and longing for fresh food, they found upon the sandy shore "great mussel's, and very fat and full of sea-pearl." Sailors and passengers indulged in the treacherous delicacy; which seems to have been the sea-clam; and found that these mollusks, like the shell the poet tells of, remembered their august abode, and treated the way-worn adventurers to a gastric reminiscence of the heaving billows. In the mean time it blew and snowed and froze. The water turned to ice ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... couple of tugboats and a brick scow, we fixed the sail so the wind would push the boat right along. Aye, aye, captain, a fish sou'-sou' by east with the wind in his teeth! The sturdy vessel was just tearing along. Honest, you could see it move—right along, just like a clam, when Alla, who, you all know, is the human goat, in trying to reach for a bottle of beer that didn't belong ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey

... I jest can't stand it any longer—got to have my coffee if I want to keep happy as a clam at high tide. Nothin' to prevent me paddlin' across once more to where I got these here greens. I noticed heaps an' heaps o' dry wood, broken branches, stems o' palmetto leaves an' such dandy trash for ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb

... seventy-eight. The thought of the invention occurred to him the day after the battle of Jena, in 1806. Some six or seven years since, we read, in an English work, an elaborate argument to show that, in a great war, Prussia must be beaten, because she had no experienced commanders!—like Benedek and Clam-Gallas, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various

... York. Not to "the road," where the traditional strife for the magnum of champagne is waged still; or to that other road farther east upon which the young—and the old, too, for that matter—take straw-rides to City Island, there to eat clam chowder, the like of which is not to be found, it is said, in or out of Manhattan. I should lead you, instead, down among the tenements, where, mayhap, you thought to find only misery and gloom, and bid you observe what goes ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... clam, sir, a clam," said Dinshaw, solemnly, and blinking his eyes at the sun which assailed him from the bare Luneta, he hurried down the steps and ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore

... pretty partner and dancing pupil! How are our friends at St. Martin's Bay and Sinepuxent? Many a sail and clam-bake we have had, Rhoda." ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... ain't got colored-man principles," said Corporal London Simmons, indignantly defending himself from some charge before me. "I'se got white-gemman principles. I'se do my best. If Cap'n tell me to take a man, s'pose de man be as big as a house, I'll clam hold on him till I die, ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... grown corrosive, poisonous, to be free 'from oppression by our fellow-man.' Forward, ye maddened sons of France; be it towards this destiny or towards that! Around you is but starvation, falsehood, corruption and the clam of death. Where ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... until Betty came down with plates and other things. The fat clams were opening their shells on the hot rock. They put butter and seasoning on the tender meat and ate, talking of this and that. And when the last clam had vanished, Gower stuffed his pipe and lit it with a coal. He gathered up the plates and forks and ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... Wanted thirteen thousand two hundred dollars in cash down there on the clam flats? What did you want ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln

... they continued fighting without any visible plan, according to the expedients of the divisional generals. The particular expedient adopted by General Zedwitz was to withdraw 15,000 men, including six regiments of cavalry, from the field. At a critical moment, Count Clam Gallas had the misfortune to lose his artillery reserve, and sent everywhere to ask if anyone had seen it. The Prince of Hesse, acting without orders, or against orders, separated his division from Schwarzenberg's and brought it up at the nick of time to save the Austrians, ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... and pebbles to Kit, because he had to stay covered up in the sand, and Kit built a play dyke all around himself with them, and Kat dug a canal outside the dyke. Then she made sand-pies in clam-shells and set them in a row in the ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe

... got another fish on! My! How it pulls! I wouldn't be out on that log, doing such a job, for anything. But I just bet Jerry is as happy as a clam. He sets his teeth, and holds on as if he had a whale, and perhaps it is a big un! I must get him again in that position. Why, although he don't know it, he's just giving me the best thing ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen

... "Heaps upon heaps, you know; 'With the jaw-bone of an ass have I slain a thousand men.' The flies were the Philistines, and I took a clam-shell for the jaw-bone; it did just as well. And I made a song out of it, to one of the tunes you whistle: 'With the jaw-bone! with the jaw-bone! with the jaw-bone of an ass!' ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards

... place for human habitation. The one large tent served as shelter, and a rude awning sheltered the ruder table in the open air. But directly about the tent, and all around it in every direction, lay heaps of clam shells, most of them opened, some not yet ready for opening. I had smelled the same odor—and had not learned to like it—in far-off Ceylon, at the great pearl fisheries of the Orient. The "clammer" ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough

... farther off; but there are other fish besides perch, and I don't intend to confine my operations to one kind. There are eels, and smelts, and cod, and haddock; and if worse comes to worse, I can go into the clam trade." ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams

... to those of the storm I had my men gather materials for a big bonfire, and kindle it well out on the flat, where it could be seen from mountain and glacier. I placed dry clothing and blankets in the fly tent facing the camp-fire, and got ready the best supper at my command: clam chowder, fried porpoise, bacon and beans, "savory meat" made of mountain kid with potatoes, onions, rice and curry, camp biscuit and coffee, with dessert of wild strawberries and ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young

... should say not! Clam soup and fried bacon and broiled bluefish and hot coffee! Nothing more than that. And we didn't do a thing ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport

... king's navigator—my man was an American sealer; and what he has once seen he knows where to find again. There are the islands—three in number and there you will find 'em, with animals on their shores as plenty as clam-shells on the south beach." ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... orator, the whole world round For feats of tongue and tooth alike renowned. Pauper in thought but prodigal in speech, Nothing he knew excepting how to teach. But in default of something to impart He multiplied his words with all his heart: When least he had to say, instructive most— A clam in wisdom ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... life with a smarting, burning, swollen face, while the attacks on every exposed inch of skin are persistent and constant. I have seen a young man after two days' exposure to these pests come out of the woods with one eye entirely closed and the brow hanging over it like a clam shell, while face and hands were almost hideous from inflammation and puffiness. The St. Regis and St. Francis Indians, although born and reared in the woods, by no means make light of the ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears

... but ten minutes in hot water or milk makes them ready to serve. An oyster stew or broth; clam stew, bouillon and chowder always in the kitchen ready for instant use. Packed in bottles that make a quart of stew and in larger bottles that ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various

... vient en mangeant', as our French friends say. You'll be hungry enough when you see the preliminary Little Neck clam. It's too ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... camped on their second night at the mouth of Lossman's River, where they had a famous clam-roast. They found a fisherman's house where they got fresh water and a can to hold it, also some cornmeal, with which Johnny made an ash-cake, or, as Dick called it, Johnny-cake. The captain said it was the best thing he had ever eaten, and Dick engaged him ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock

... man of his little clam-bake, and it would be full as pleasant as settin' down onto a Hornet's nest, when the Hornet family ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various

... enigmatical telegram and M. Zola's talk during the evening, when he was expressing his thoughts aloud. But at that moment he had foreseen no death, murder, or suicide, and if the possibility of any arrest had occurred to him it was that of M. du Paty de Clam, which the ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... probable that from an early date the praetor's possessory interdict was used to protect all occupiers, provided their tenure had been acquired neither by force (vi) nor by seizure of land in its occupiers, absence (clam), nor by mere permission of the previous holder to occupy (precario alter ab altero.) Moreover, Appian says that possessors of this type could transfer their land by inheritance, and that the land was accepted as security by creditors. This kind of occupation, therefore, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... in a certain lake, and as the people passed through this lake in their canoes, this great fish was accustomed to come after those crossing the lake and if he overtook them he would swallow them up, canoe and all, like swallowing a little clam in its shell. So Ne-naw-bo-zhoo said to himself, "This great fish will eat up all my nephews. Now I must somehow dispose of him." And he went to the lake in his canoe expressly to look for the fish, singing daring songs as he went along. After he came in the midst of it, there he stopped, but kept ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird

... calf's liver and a kitchen could withstand that invitation and he found he had accepted before he knew it. To his boundless delight, the dinner was as though designed in Heaven, for his delectation. Clam chowder, calves' liver and sliced onions, watermelon preserves, and home made apple pie—made by Kitty, who had received rigid orders to provide the richest and juiciest confection possible, overflowing ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston

... I have not. I confess I'm baffled. The secret has been well kept. The publishers have shut up like a clam. There's only one thing that ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein

... waiting in the hall and watching with a keen glance for the approach of the physician who is to announce that one is a forefather. The amateur forefather of 1620 must have felt proud yet anxious about the clam-yield also, as each new ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye

... for hysteria—a little nerve tonic. A good sleep may put him all right by to-morrow morning. The chances are, however, that the O. C. will send him down for a few days' rest and change. If so, the chap will be as happy as a clam. The boys will rag him half to death down there, so that he will be keen to get back again, and the chances are may get his V. C. Oh, we all get scared stiff," laughed Gregg. "We are none of us proud about here. That hero stuff that you read about in the home papers, we don't know ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor

... thee, For thi sen,"—an' they stared like two geese, But he sed, woll th' tear stood in his e'e, "Nah, it'll just be a penny a piece." "God bless thi! do just as tha will, An' may better days speedily come; Tho' clam'd, an' hauf donn'd, mi lad, still Tha'rt a deal ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, First Series - To Which Is Added The Cream Of Wit And Humour From His Popular Writings • John Hartley

... the novelty of living in this way, Though my bill of fare is always rather tame, But I'm happy as a clam on the land of Uncle Sam In the little old sod shanty on ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various

... Moral of the tale is: Bah! Nous avons change tout cela. No clear idea I hope to strike Of what your nicest girl is like, But she whose best young man I am Is not an oyster, nor a clam! ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl

... o'er some specious rhime Dub'd by the musk'd and greasy mob sublime. 96 For spleen's dear sake hear how a coxcomb prates As clam'rous o'er his joys as fifty cats; "Music has charms to sooth a savage breast, To soften rocks, and oaks"—and all the rest: 100 "I've heard"—Bless these long ears!—"Heav'ns what a strain! Good God! What thunders burst in this Campaign! Hark Waller warbles! Ah! how ...
— Essays on Taste • John Gilbert Cooper, John Armstrong, Ralph Cohen

... the expression on Tom's face, he wasn't saying anything Tom liked a whole lot. After a while he left, and I went over to Tom. I asked casual-like what it was he wanted to talk with me about and he froze up like a clam. He was scared, at first. Then he seemed to get sort of mad, too, because he said, 'I'm going to call ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine

... to him if he does." Diane rose and looked stormily down at her friend. "You're about as broad as a clam, Gordon. Can't you see that even if it's true, all that is done with? It is a part of his past—and it's finished—trodden under foot. It hasn't a thing to do ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine

... assigns certain lands and revenues, including ten thousand eels due to him as king, for the maintenance of the monastery. To signify the public character of the grant, it is stated in the attestation clause that it is made not in a corner, but in the open: "Non clam in angulo sed sub divo palam evidentissime." The charter is signed by the king, two archbishops, twelve bishops, the queen, eleven abbots, nine dukes (duces), and forty-one knights. This ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ely • W. D. Sweeting

... had,” I replied amiably. “Thank God I’m not a clam! I’ve seen the world and paid for it. I don’t want anything from you. You undoubtedly share my grandfather’s idea of me that I’m a wild man who can’t sit still or lead an orderly, decent life; but I’m going ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson

... of an American who should have the presumption to open a House of Refreshment in the Rue St. Jacques or the Palais Royale, and announce to the Parisians that he would serve up for them Prince's Bay oysters, fried, stewed, roasted or in the shell; clam soup, pumpkin-pies, waffles, hoe-cakes and slap-jacks, or mush-and-milk and buck-wheats? Would the most inquisitive or most vulgar man in France venture within the doors of a house where such barbarisms were perpetrated? But why not, Monsieur? Why not, as well as for us to ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various

... telephone call at the office two hours later, Kitty had a suspicion he was up to something. He bubbled mystery so palpably that her curiosity was piqued. But the puncher for once was silent as a clam. He did not intend to get Kitty into trouble if his plan miscarried. Moreover, he had an intuition that if she knew what was under way she would put her small, competent foot through the middle of ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... at Prayer," exhibited at the Paris Salon, 1893, and "Jessica," belong to the Public Library in Williamsport; "Clam-Diggers Coming Home—Cape Cod" was in the Venice Exhibition, 1903; one of her pictures shows the ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement

... little of everything on table to see which best agrees with them. So down goes the Johnny cakes, Indian flappers, Lucy Neals, Hoe cakes—with toast, fine cookies, rice batter, Indian batter, Kentucky batter, flannel cakes, and clam fritters. Super-superior fine flour is the wholesomest thing in the world, and you can't have too much of it. It's grand for pastry, and that is as light and as flakey as snow when well made. How can it make paste inside of you and be wholesome? If you would believe some Yankee doctors you'd think ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... to talking in sociable manner of other writers, but if his visitor did not wish to see him close up like a clam and vanish to the seclusion of an upper room it was better not to mention Uncle Remus. Neither had he any fancy for the kind of talk that prevails at "pink teas" and high functions of society in general. Anything that would be appropriate to the topics introduced in such places ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... eleven the treasurer and his attorney were shown into the firm's office, the former a man of sixty, with a cold, smooth-shaven face, ferret eyes and thin, straight lips, thin as the edges of a tight-shut clam, and as bloodless. He was dressed in black and wore a white necktie which gave him a certain ministerial air. His companion, the attorney, was younger and warmer looking, and a trifle stouter, with bushy gray locks under his hat brim, and bushy gray side-whiskers ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith

... You must come down to the shore, and we will show you a clam's nest," she said, remembering that only yesterday she had discovered the nest of a kingfisher in an oak tree whose branches nearly touched the shore, and could point this out to the ...
— A Little Maid of Old Maine • Alice Turner Curtis

... understand you, John," said I. "You want fiction-writers to be consistent with their scenes and characters. They shouldn't mix Turkish pashas with Vermont farmers, or English dukes with Long Island clam-diggers, or Italian countesses with Montana cowboys, or Cincinnati brewery agents with the rajahs ...
— Options • O. Henry

... of common sense, Halliday," said Davis, turning to his companion, "don't sit there like a clam; open up and say something to convince this Don Quixote who, because he himself, sees only windmills, cannot be persuaded that we have real ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... not a sound of romance, but when you know that it means "long tidal stream" you hear it differently ever after. And it is fun to find out that "Quogue" is all the years haven't nibbled off the word "quohaug," a name the Indians gave to a great, round, purple-shelled clam they loved. ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)

... middle class, treating with a clinical wealth of detail the irritable monotonies of the nuptial couch and the artless intimacies of the nursery. She smoked incessantly, could walk ten miles at a stretch, and was as passionless as a clam. Gerald Scores, who wore a short pointed beard and looked the complete artist, was one of the chief hopes of the intellectual drama cunningly commercialized; and as capable as Clavering of shutting up his genius in a water-tight compartment, ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... a questionable clam. For two days he was languorous and petted and esteemed. He was allowed to snarl "Oh, let me alone!" without reprisals. He lay on the sleeping-porch and watched the winter sun slide along the taut curtains, turning their ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis

... school ma'am in the Union, to begin with," said poppa confidently, and by the time we reached Verona he had floated the company, launched the first ship, arrived in Venice with full orchestral accompaniment, and dined the imitation Doge—if he couldn't get Umberto and Crispi—upon clam chowder and canvas-backs to the solemn strains of Hail Columbia played up and down the Grand Canal. "If it could be worked," said poppa as we descended upon the platform, "I'd like to have the Pope telephone us a ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... Salamis; in the little temple of "Wingless Victory"[*] we see her as Athena the Victorious, triumphant over Barbarian and Hellenic foe; but in the Parthenon we adore in her purest conception—the virgin queen, now chaste and clam, her battles over, the pure, high incarnations of all "the beautiful and the good" that may possess spirit and mind,—the sovran intellect, in short, purged of all carnal, earthy passion. It is meet that such a goddess should inhabit such a ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis

... environment, all stimuli issue in immediate and nicely adjusted responses. This happens only where the environment is very simple and stable, and where in consequence no complexity of structure or action is necessary. In the clam and the oyster, and in some of the lower vertebrates, perhaps, instinctive activity is almost exclusively present. But in the case of man, so complicated are the situations to which he is exposed that random instinctive responses ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... scortum duxit clam uxorem suam, Id si rescivit uxor, impune est viro. Uxor viro si clam domo egressa est foras, Viro fit causa, exigitur matrimonio. Utinam lex esset cadem quae uxori ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker

... she—Mira, I mean? We know she's drawing the profits regularly from the 3-bar-Y. But that foreman of hers is as mute as a clam. . . . And now Bert, her best cowboy, has disappeared. Hm-m! What d'ye ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan

... there get cooked almost as soon as they're caught. And there are lobsters and crabs—and it's good fun to go crabbing. Then at low tide we dig for clams, and they're good, too—I'll bet you never dreamed how good a clam could be!" ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart

... feelings were so wounded that he would not appear. Mr. Otis consequently resumed his great work on the history of the Democratic party, on which he had been engaged for some years; Mrs. Otis organized a wonderful clam-bake, which amazed the whole county; the boys took to lacrosse, euchre, poker, and other American national games, and Virginia rode about the lanes on her pony, accompanied by the young Duke of Cheshire, who had come to spend ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough

... these were flanked by piles of pea-nuts, apples, &c. But all these would have been nothing without that delight of childhood—taffy-candy; and upon a further investigation, we discovered a very ingenious pair of clam-shell scales, with holes bored for strings to pass through, and suspended from a stout stick which was kept in its place by being fastened to an upright piece of wood at each end—the whole resting upon a very complete counter formed of old boxes. It looked ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman

... tricks," said Guerin, "I'd be glad to know them, for I don't want to disgrace the engine by losing time. I've been trying to pump the boy, but he's as close as a clam." ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman

... a clam when it comes to pretty girls. You didn't talk about her, because your haid's been full of her. It don't take ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine

... no visible change; but on the third day the strange gasteropod unfolded both himself and the mystery. From his long embrace fell the shell of a Mactra, nearly as broad as his own. Near the hinge was a smooth, round hole, through which the poor Clam had been sucked. Foot, stomach, siphon, muscles, all but a thin strip of mantle, were gone. The problem of the Natica's existence was solved, and the verification was found in more than one Buccinum minus ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various

... to so suddenly precipitate upon you a discussion of a practical nature, especially when at the very outset I must begin to talk about clams. [Laughter.] For when we begin to consider wampum we have to begin to consider the familiar hard-shell clam of daily use, which was the basis of wampum. At this stage of the feast, after the confections contained in that eulogium passed upon you by the Governor of Massachusetts [Frederick T. Greenhalge], ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... in wild confusion runs, A clam'rous troop of Affric's sable sons, Behind the victors shout, with barbarous roar, The vanquish'd fly with hideous yells before, The gloomy squadron thro' the valley speeds Whilst clatt'ring cudgels ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... development of agriculture in the United States. In 1492 the first settlers found the Indians carrying on agriculture in a crude and limited way, by the women; their farm machinery consisting of their fingers, a pointed stick for planting, and the bones of animals and the shell of the clam for a hoe; with nothing more than a squatter's right as a voucher for the ownership of their farms. Prof. McMaster's History of the People of the United States, George K. Holmes, assistant statistician of the United States Department of Agriculture, in his "Progress of Agriculture in the United ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... surroundings Stiles went to the window, but could see nothing except hills, valleys and bushland. Not a single habitation was in sight. He found out later that the place was down near Stockton, somewhere back in Clam Creek Valley, many miles from the city; it was from the Stockton station that they afterwards boarded ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse

... within five yards of Mac's bull, and an Eskimo hurled a harpoon, hit the large bull, and threw overboard the sealskin float. At this stage of the game about forty other walruses, that had been feeding below, came up to the surface to see what the noise was about, spitting the clam shells out of their mouths and snorting. The water was alive with the brutes, and many of them were so close to us that we could hit them with the oars. A harpoon was driven into another by a corking throw; ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary

... in the sand, flat side up, round side down," I told him that my shoe could not do that, without the aid of my foot in it; at which he said that they merely settled down as they grew; if put down in a square, they would be found so; but the clam could move quite fast. I have since been told by oystermen of Long Island, where the oyster is still indigenous and abundant, that they are found in large masses attached to the parent in their midst, and are so taken up with their tongs; in which case, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... beach, I found the shell of an immense clam, with which I returned, and using it as a scoop, or shovel, removed two or three bushels of sand, when a moist stratum was reached, and my clam- shovel struck the chime of a flour-barrel. In my joy I called to Saddles, for I knew our parched throats would soon ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop

... his endin' his days smothered in sweets; but the wild duck, suh, is bawn of the salt ice, braves the storm, and lives a life of peyil and hardship. You don't degrade a' oyster, a soft shell crab, or a clam with confectionery; why a ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith

... cause to tell" (from gam "to tell"). Or the process may be used to derive verbs from nouns, as in Hottentot khoe-khoe "to talk Hottentot" (from khoe-b "man, Hottentot"), or as in Kwakiutl metmat "to eat clams" (radical element met- "clam"). ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir

... Friday, after one of Harshaw's entirely frank but perfectly unexplained absences, that he came into camp and inquired if there was any clam-broth left in the kitchen. I referred him to the cook. Finding there was, he returned to me and asked if he might take a tin of it to Miss ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote

... agreeable as he could to the young ladies on the cliffs above. It is true there was an angle in the cliffs which concealed his approach from the eye, and the soft sand deadened the sound of footsteps to the ear; but both the money-digger and the clam-digger would have deemed it impossible for any one to come into their presence without being heard. But then both of them were absorbed in the unearthing of the treasure, and Leopold made so much noise with his shovel that the sound of Charley Redmond's approach, if there ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic

... but you see from the tones of my voice that I am unable to. This has been a happy, a glorious day. I shall never forget it. There is a charm about this beautiful day, about this sea air, and especially about that peculiar institution of yours—a clam bake. I think you have the advantage, in that respect, of Southerners. For my own part, I have much more fondness for your clams than I have for their niggers. But every man to his taste."—Hon Stephen A. Douglas's Address at Rocky ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam

... herself, came and went about the studio brightly, briskly, keeping vigilant eye on her husband's mail, moistening his "mud ladies," and defending him from inopportune callers, insistent beggars, and wandering models. Bertha, though sitting with the stolid patience of a Mississippi clam-fisher, was thinking at express speed. Her mind was of that highly developed type where a hint sets in motion a score of related cognitions, and a word here and there in Moss's rambling remarks instructed her like a flash of light. She was at school, in a high sense, ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... flag of unknown description reportedly has been adopted; previous flag consisted of two equal horizontal bands of yellow (top) and green with a vertical red band on the hoist side; in the upper portion of the red band is a black five-pointed star framed by two corn stalks and a yellow clam shell; uses the popular pan-African colors of Ethiopia; similar to the flag of Guinea-Bissau, which is longer and has an unadorned black star centered in the ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... say, not much under a hundred and ninety. Ruther light complected, and has a long cut in his face that shows awful white when he gits his back up. Thunder! he pretty nearly scared me with that gash one night when he was drunk. It seemed to open and shut like a clam-shell, and made him look like a Voodoo priest! You'd think the blood was goan to ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent

... upon this time Kieft decided that he needed money for other work, and he told the Indians of the province that he expected something from them. Of course the Indians had no such money as we have in these days. They used instead beads, very handsome and made from clam-shells. These beads were arranged on strings. There were black ones and white ones, and the black were worth twice as much as the white. The Indians did not see why they should give money to the Governor. Kieft explained that it was to pay for the protection given to them ...
— The Story of Manhattan • Charles Hemstreet

... on a little gravelly bench, where the river whispers and lisps among the pebbles as the tide creeps in. It is a weather-beaten ex-skipper or ex-pilot, with strands of coarse hair, like seaweed, falling about a face that has the expression of a half-open clam. He is always ready to talk with you, this amphibious person; and if he is not the most entertaining of gossips—more weather-wise that Old Probabilities, and as full of moving incident as Othello ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... shut up like a clam. "I don't know, Miss," he snapped. "It's best for you not to ask too ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey

... on the platform, side by side and crowded close, lay a score of blacks. That they were low in the order of human life was apparent at a glance. They were man-eaters. Their faces were asymmetrical, bestial; their bodies were ugly and ape- like. They wore nose-rings of clam-shell and turtle-shell, and from the ends of their noses which were also pierced, projected horns of beads strung on stiff wire. Their ears were pierced and distended to accommodate wooden plugs and sticks, pipes, ...
— Adventure • Jack London

... stopped with his sister till she got tired and shook him. Then he went to Chicago, where there's such a lot of silly Nanarchists like himself, and there he's stayed. I hope will stay, too, till the children get growed. He seems to be makin' his salt, some kind of livin', and he's happy as a clam in high water. He hasn't a thing to do but talk and talkin' suits him to a T. Best come in and get washed up. A letter come from Dorothy's parents and the pair of 'em will be to the Landing by the evening boat. Or one by train and ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond

... forage for herself at present. Diving down the main passage she presently issued from the water-gate, and immediately rose to the clear-roofed air-space. Here she nibbled tentatively at some stems and withered leafage. These proving little to her taste, she suddenly remembered a clam-bed not far off, and instantly set out for it. She swam briskly down-stream along the air-space, her eyes and nose just out of the water, the ice gleaming ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... will be still not only joining hands, kissing, but embracing, treading on their toes, &c., diving into their bosoms, and that libenter, et cum delectatione, as [5276] Philostratus confesseth to his mistress; and Lamprias in Lucian, Mammillas premens, per sinum clam dextra, &c., feeling their paps, and that scarce honestly sometimes: as the old man in the [5277]Comedy well observed of his son, Non ego te videbam manum huic puellae in sinum insere? Did not I see thee put thy hand into her bosom? go to, with many such love tricks. [5278]Juno ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... has stated clearly the method of Agassiz's teaching—simply to let the student study intimately one object at a time. Day after day he would come to your table and ask you what you had learned, and thus keep you at it for a week. My first object put before me was a common clam, Mya arenaria.'] ...
— Louis Agassiz as a Teacher • Lane Cooper

... father's tithes very regularly. Several efforts were made to win over these dissentients; and the Rev. Mr. Ingram delivered an able and liberal Latin speech, in which he indignantly represented the shame that it would bring on the University, if such a name as that of Sheridan should be "clam subductum" from the list. The two scholars, however, were immovable; and nothing remained but to give Sheridan intimation of their intended opposition, so as to enable him to decline the honor of having his name proposed. On his appearance, afterwards, in the Theatre, a burst of acclamation ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... farmers, all around, had a tough time getting their harvests home, because every hand was treading for mussels in the creeks and small rivers for thirty miles around Carson. Why, I bet you it'd be as hard to find a fresh-water clam down our way now as a needle in a haystack; they're all cleaned out. You see, Max here had read about pearls being found out in Indiana and other places, and that gave him the big idea; just like you got set on the fur farm business ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie

... Bud, 's all right. Don't get peeved; I'll close up tighter 'n a clam, only—it's ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol

... A clam like Filmer had no right to personal opinions of other folks' conduct. Unless he let light in upon his own excuse for being, ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... beaver pond scattered widely, returning each one to the shy, wild, solitary life that Quoskh likes best. Almost anywhere, in the loneliest places, I might come upon a solitary heron stalking frogs, or chumming little fish, or treading the soft mud expectantly, like a clam digger, to find where the mussels were hidden by means of his long toes; or just standing still to enjoy the sleepy sunshine till the late afternoon came, when he likes ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long

... dish before her employers; "I don't know as clam fritters are what rich folks ought to eat, but I done the best I could. I'm so shook up and trembly this day it's a mercy ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln

... 'em out with broken chiny and posies. I swan 't makes me feel curus when I think what children du contrive to get pleased, and likewise riled about! One day I rec'lect Hetty'd stepped onto my biggest clam-shell and broke it, and I up and hit her a switch right across her pretty lips. Now you'd 'a' thought she would cry and run, for she wasn't bigger than a baby, much; but she jest come up and put her little fat arms ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various

... clam digging began at once, the little boys taking off their shoes and stockings. At first August refused to be comforted, and it was not until his father drove him into the water with his gold-headed cane that he consented to ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris

... it—got thrown out into the old cellar: empty fruit cans, broken dishes, leaky old pans and dippers, parts of broken chairs and broken looking-glasses, and old kettles and frying-pans; bits of shingles, old nails, and piles and piles of clam and oyster shells; and Billy knew the minute he saw a thing what to ...
— Harper's Young People, November 18, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... the salvage expert!" McGuffey's falsetto would have maddened a sheep. "He cast his bread upon the waters and lo, it returned to him after many days—and made him sick. O-h-h-h-h, Scraggsy—poor old Scraggsy! If he went divin' for pearls in three feet o' water he'd bring up a clam shell. Oh, dear, I'm goin' to ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... dainties on the very stones where sit the ghosts of those who perished from hunger and thirst! Eminently Dantesque, but the sacrilege appalls Leo. She would sooner attend an oyster supper, or a clam-bake in the Catacombs, or—" bowing to a young Englishman standing near, "lead a German in the Poets' corner of Westminster Abbey. My dear girl, under which flag do you ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... mollusks and sea scorpions, a cephalopod larger than a man; then gigantic fishes and amphibians and reptiles, followed by enormous mammals. But the geologic record shows that these huge forms did not continue. The mollusks that last unchanged through millions of years are the clam and the oyster of our day. The huge mosses and tree-ferns are gone, and only their humbler types remain. Among men ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs

... the Cercle to take away Captain Pincher. "I lived close to him at Atuona all the time he was there till he died. He was bughouse. I don't know much about painting, but if you call that crazy stuff of Gauguin's proper painting, then I'm a furbelowed clam." ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... and bushes, and especially were we interested in the ducks on Fern Hollow creek. Dora insisted upon feeding them a piece of bread. "Calamity," the dog, was along, of course, and as he belonged to William Pitt, who called him "Clam," he was always in that boy's company. It was, "Love me, love my dog," with William; and as he was a professional of some kind, he was greatly prized ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various

... talked pretty loud and rough to the Moore's Flat fellows calling them "lazy pups" for not getting their road clear. Hunt's helper was a big stout, loud talking young man named Williams, and he shouted to the leader—"Sid Hunt, toot your horn if you don't sell a clam." This seemed to put both sides in good humor, and the Orleans fellows joined in a plenty to eat and drink, rested and went home. Next day, both camps joined forces and broke the road over to Woolsey's Flat, and the third day crowded on toward Nevada City, and when out and across ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... white with broken clam shells mark the shore, and if across the beach a stream of crystal water rippled to the sea, one Indian lodge or more was sure to be erected on the rising land behind; for Indians always choose to build their homes on sheltered sandy bays where pure fresh ...
— Indian Legends of Vancouver Island • Alfred Carmichael

... way to a house apart from the others at the very edge of the shelving rock. The dooryard was scrupulously clean and unlittered; the little footpath through it was neatly bordered by white clam shells; several thrifty geraniums in bloom looked out from the ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... land from the Simms place; that would let his stock down to water on the far side of his land where it would be a great convenience and give him a better arrangement of fields so he could make more money. You know Father. He shut up like a clam and only said: "Do what you please. If a Bates teaches the school it makes my word good." So Hiram is going to teach for me. He is brushing up a little nights and I am helping him on "theory," and I am wild with joy, and so is Robert. I ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... are dead, and now, no more Our harmless mirth, our wit, and score Distracts the town; when all is spent That the base niggard world hath lent Thy purse, or mine; when the loath'd noise Of drawers, 'prentices and boys Hath left us, and the clam'rous bar Items no pints i' th' Moon or Star; When no calm whisp'rers wait the doors, To fright us with forgotten scores; And such aged long bills carry, As might start an antiquary; When the sad tumults of the maze, Arrests, suits, and the dreadful face Of sergeants are not seen, and we ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan

... Von Moltke, Von Roon and General Bittenfeld. The King in person and Bismarck were present with the advance. The impact was more than Austria could stand. On the twenty-seventh and twenty-ninth of June, Frederick Charles defeated the Austrian advance in four indecisive engagements. Count Clam-Gallas, the Austrian general, was obliged to fall back on the main ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various



Words linked to "Clam" :   one dollar bill, giant clam, jackknife clam, gather, pelecypod, Manhattan clam chowder, banker's bill, bank note, round clam, Tridacna gigas, freshwater clam, government note, clam up, Venus mercenaria, clam dip, USA, United States, buck, steamer, bivalve, teredinid, hard clam, the States, pull together, littleneck clam, long-neck clam, dollar bill, razor clam, Mercenaria mercenaria, knife-handle, New England clam chowder, blood clam, United States of America, bill



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com