Cloam

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An archaic term for earthenware, the baked clay pots, dishes and vessels made by a potter
2. Old word for pottery, meaning crockery and containers shaped from clay and hardened by firing
3. Dialect term for household vessels fashioned from baked clay, the type of earthenware once common in homes

Etymology: "Cloam" is an older English word for clay, mud, or mortar, and it survives mainly in dialect and in older writing. It came into Middle English as "clom" from Old English "clām," which meant paste, mortar, mud, clay, or even a poultice, so the word covered both building material and something spread on the skin. The Old English form traces back through Proto-Germanic "klaimaz," meaning clay, to a much older root meaning "to stick" or "to smear." That sense fits the material well: wet clay sticks to everything it touches, and it was prized by builders precisely because it binds other materials together. The word is related to "cleam," "claim," and "clem," which are other English forms descending from the same ancient root. "Claim" is the most familiar of these today, though its meaning has moved a long way from sticky earth toward assertions of ownership or right.