Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Soil composed of a mixture of sand, clay, silt, and organic matter.
- n. A mixture of moist clay and sand, and often straw, used especially in making bricks and foundry molds.
- v. To fill, cover, or coat with loam.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A soil consisting of a natural mixture of clay and sand, the latter being present in sufficient quantity to overcome the tendency of the clay to form a coherent mass. That which is ordinarily called loam is fine-grained, homogeneous, and “light”—that is, not densely compacted together. Carbonate of lime is usually present in small quantity, and also organic matter. See
marl , soil, and loess. - n. In founding, a mixture of sand, clay, sawdust, straw, etc., used in making the molds for castings. The compound must be plastic when wet, and hard, air-tight, and able to resist high temperatures when dry. Specifically called casting-loam.
- n. A vessel of clay; an earthen vessel.
- To cover or coat with loam; clay.
Wiktionary
- n. A kind of soil; an earthy mixture of clay and sand, with organic matter to which its fertility is chiefly due.
- v. To cover, smear, or fill with loam.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A kind of soil; an earthy mixture of clay and sand, with organic matter to which its fertility is chiefly due.
- n. (Founding) A mixture of sand, clay, and other materials, used in making molds for large castings, often without a pattern.
- v. To cover, smear, or fill with loam.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a rich soil consisting of a mixture of sand and clay and decaying organic materials
Etymologies
- From Old English lām. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English lam, lom, clay, from Old English lām; see lei- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The term loam is applied to a soil which, from its appearance in the field and the feeling when handled, appears to be about one-half sand and the other half silt and clay with more or less organic matter.”
“It's the top spit that puzzles us, and loam is the most important thing of all.”
“Ash of the loam was a lady at home when Brut was an outlaw man”
“We can easily see that the melting away of the immense glaciers that we have been describing would produce vast floods in the rivers, and it is perhaps owing to the presence of such swollen rivers that are due the great beds of surface soil, called loam or loess, found in all the river valleys of France and Germany.”
“The soil is a rich sandy loam, that is easily cultivated and gives promise of great agricultural and horticultural possibilities.”
The Choctaw Freedmen and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy
“In early fall I get together a pile of fresh sod loam, that is, the top spit from a pasture field, but do not add any manure to it.”
Mushrooms: how to grow them a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure
“The loam is the ordinary field soil from his market garden.”
Mushrooms: how to grow them a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure
“The clay wherewith our houses are impannelled is either white, red, or blue; and of these the first doth participate very much of the nature of our chalk; the second is called loam; but the third eftsoons changeth colour as soon as it is wrought, notwithstanding that it looks blue when it is thrown out of the pit.”
“The soil varies somewhat in different localities, consisting, however, mainly of a sandy loam, which is very fertile and suited to the growth of any crop which it is desirable to cultivate.”
“The soils are red clay, and a gray sandy loam, which is admirably adapted to the cultivation of tobacco.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘loam’.
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Old words
Old words: modern English words that are old according to criteria that are still vague: Either words common to several old languages or words substantially similar in old English. Please add to or...
mother, father, bark, spit, old, fire, this, that, black, thou, to give, hand and 259 more...
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Not edible
Things that sound edible but are not (usually). See Liberty's To Eat, or Not to Eat? for more diet food.
cinnabar, dulcimer, belfries, potto, maltha, grapple, loam, rake, tort, pomade, buffalo chip, wedgie and 172 more...
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Mountain Biking
Words that relate to bicycling or mountain biking
crank, podium, attack position, bonk, rock garden, babyheads, bunny hop, chain, chainring, clipless, freeride, slicks and 206 more...
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#faveword
Words chosen as favorites for the Twitter hashtag #faveword.
autumnal, grotto, chiaroscuro, sfumato, homunculus, zing, zest, effervescent, bewitch, avuncular, susurrus, Styrofoam and 205 more...
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Periodic Table of Cake
I should have known better, but once I got started on this, I realized it’s basically the same thing as Ruzuzu’s list “Let them eat cake”, with less cake.
cheese, ague, almond, alum, pan, ash, beef, tea, Baddeley, daikon, yellow, zebra and 44 more...
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Interesting Words
A list of words that I find cool.
décolleté, ineluctably, pantechnicon, ossary, peripeteia, harridan, recidivist, irremediable, suppuration, slaver, loam, umbrage and 15 more...
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Ancient Influence
Words that inspire a feeling of old and/or mythical influences.
Ogham, sward, willow, hazel, yew, holly, barrow, runes, sepulchre, rill, rivulet, heft and 26 more...
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Words I like
A list contrived for the sole purpose of storing words I like to include in my writing; words that inspire or carry power for me.
contrite, meadow, sward, ossary, calumny, moribund, necropolis, chthonic, murmur, erstwhile, chime, beryl and 63 more...
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Surprising four-letter words
I imagine most of these will be Anglo-Saxon, not likely to crop up in the average day's conversation, and thus excellent for Scrabble. ("most" is too common, likewise "will" and even "crop", in an...
blet, quim, clit, buff, sire, wiki, blog, loam, waft, heft, mare, lilt and 68 more...
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Stalking Darkness
Words and phrases from Lynn Flewelling's book, Stalking Darkness.
inquest, halyard, catamount, occlude, founder, more, grouse, grapple, water butt, antepenultimate, palimpsest, hob and 196 more...
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Rubbies
Words and things that rub me wrong
eclectic, canon, flesh, irregardless, conversate, can't, mandatory, war on christmas, male bonding, pissa, parochial, infallible and 98 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, L
lisle, lahar, loupe, labret, latten, luster, lagomorph, lamentation, limicole, lunge, lobtail, latifolious and 182 more...
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theastic's Words
cellar, stalemate, wrought, opal, tyrant, squelch, squab, linen, tartan, paisley, scope, siren and 395 more...
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Aequoria's list
affect, deleterious, nuance, pliant, verbatim, pertinent, latter, municipality, provincial, voyeuristic, circumlocution, wane and 798 more...
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Words Covered in Faery Dust (L)
words that evoke magic, mystery, mayhem, magnificence or anything else that glimmers in the grass
labyrinth, lace, lad, lady fingers, lagoon, lamb, lament, lammas, lantern, larkspur, lass, lauds and 92 more...
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fuffbee's Words
panopticon, perihelion, apsis, cuppycake, nexus, fufflebee, shawshank, hoi, lool, apogee, id, rubedo and 90 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for loam.
ofravens Loam-humps, he says, moles shunt
up from delved worm-haunt
from "Ode for Ted," Sylvia Plath Apr 14, 2008