Other forms: clamps, clamped, clamping
A clamp is a tool that squeezes two things together and holds them there. Turn the screw, and nothing moves.
Woodworkers use them while glue dries, and there are clamps for pipes, hoses and workbenches. The verb covers any tight grip, so you clamp a hand over your mouth. Britain has the wheel clamp, fitted to illegally parked cars, and being clamped is a specific misery. The phrasal verb clamp down on means to enforce something strictly, and a clampdown is the enforcement itself.
Clamp came in from Dutch. Middle Dutch klampe meant a clamp or a hook, from a Germanic word for a clasp or a cramp, so clamp and cramp are the same grip.
Proto-Germanic
*klampō — clamp, clasp, cramp
Middle Dutch
clamp
English, today
clamp
Built from
From Middle Dutch clamp, klampe (“a clamp, hook”), from Proto-Germanic klampō (“clamp, clasp, cramp”), related to Proto-West Germanic klammjan. Cognate with Middle Low German klampe (“hook, clasp”), German Klampfe, Klampe (“clamp, cleat”), Norwegian klamp (“clamp”), gsw Chlempi.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove, Tools & DIY
First appears in chapter 11 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word