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# clams

«clams» in Mova's school dictionary: **shellfish with two hard shells joined by a hinge, which…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 2 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

noun plural (clams; singular a clam); verb (clam up, clams up, clammed up)

### meaning for a pupil

1) Clams are shellfish with two hard shells joined by a hinge, which live in sand or mud. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/clams/#m1)

2) Clams are eaten as food, as in clam chowder. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/clams/#m2)

3) To clam up means to suddenly stop talking, often from shyness or fear. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/clams/#m3)

4) (US slang, old) Clams can mean dollars. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/clams/#m4)

### sense in the lessons

In science, clams are molluscs that filter water to feed; giant clams on coral reefs can be huge. At the beach, kids dig for clams. «Happy as a clam» means very happy (US).

### examples

- We dug for clams at low tide. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/clams/#x1)
- Clam chowder is a creamy soup. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/clams/#x2)
- The giant clams on the reef were bigger than me. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/clams/#x3)
- When the teacher asked, he clammed up. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/clams/#x4)
- Clams breathe through gills. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/clams/#x5)
- That bike cost fifty clams! (slang) [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/clams/#x6)
- A dish of venison, however, was no unacceptable meal to them, especially after feeding so long on oysters and clams. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/clams/#x7)

### note

Singular: clam. Clam up: past «clammed». Myth: giant clams do not trap divers.

### In the corpora

- [Walruses find clams on the dark seabed with hundreds of sensitive whiskers and suck them out of their shells.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/169-the-arctic-ocean-walruses-bowheads-the-400-year-shark-and-the-unicorns-tooth/5/)
- [An octopus is a soft relative of snails and clams, yet it is one of the cleverest animals in the sea.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/234-animal-minds-the-octopus-escape-artist-and-puzzle-solver/0/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «clams» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/clams/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.