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loam

UK/ləʊm/US/loʊm/
nounC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,477 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: loams

Loam is rich crumbly soil, the best sort for growing. Good loam, a loam soil, sandy loam.

It is a balance of sand, silt and clay rather than a substance of its own, and that mixture holds water without waterlogging. Gardeners buy it by the bag, and it is what every soil test hopes to find.

cmglee, Mikenorton, United States Department of Agriculture · CC BY-SA 4.0

Definitions of loam

  1. 1nounloamRich crumbly soil, the best sort for growing.C1

    “Their garden was deep, dark loam, so almost anything they planted did well.”

loam is a soil.

Where it comes from

Old English lam means clay or mud, from a Germanic root also behind lime.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *h₂leyH- — to smear

  2. Proto-Germanic

    *laimaz

  3. Proto-West Germanic

    *laim

  4. Old English

    lām — clay, mud, mire, earth

  5. Middle English

    lom

  6. English, today

    loam

Built from

  • *laimô · Proto-Germanic — clay

From Middle English lom, lome, from Old English lām (“clay, mud, mire, earth”), from Proto-West Germanic laim, from Proto-Germanic laimaz, laimô (“clay”), from Proto-Indo-European h₂leyH- (“to smear”). Cognate with stq Leem (“loam”), West Frisian liem (“loam”), Dutch leem (“loam”), German Lehm (“loam”). Related also to lime.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Materials & Substances

Practise this word

loam in the wild

  • The soils of Mount Arvon are classic podzols which have developed on sandy loam glacial till locally overlain with a loamy or silty mantle.

    Mount Arvon

  • The Munising sandy loam-Michigamme silt loam complex is dominant.

    Mount Arvon

  • In the United States Department of Agriculture, textural classification triangle, the only soil that is not predominantly sand, silt, or clay is called "loam".

    Loam

  • The different types of loam soils each have slightly different characteristics, with some draining liquids more efficiently than others.

    Loam

  • The name comes from the small community of Port, in Washita County, and the texture of the top soil (silt loam).

    Port Silt Loam

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.