loam
Americannoun
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loams
plural
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a rich, friable soil containing a relatively equal mixture of sand and silt and a somewhat smaller proportion of clay.
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a mixture of clay, sand, straw, etc., used in making molds for founding and in plastering walls, stopping holes, etc.
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earth or soil.
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Obsolete. clay or clayey earth.
verb (used with object)
noun
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rich soil consisting of a mixture of sand, clay, and decaying organic material
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a paste of clay and sand used for making moulds in a foundry, plastering walls, etc
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of loam
First recorded before 900; from late Middle English lome, earlier lam(e), Old English lām; cognate with Dutch leem, German Lehm “loam, clay”; akin to lime 2
Explanation
Loam is soil — rich soil — that is a mix of sand, clay, and various organic materials. Loam is often used to make bricks. Loam is a type of soil that's got a lot going on: loam contains clay, sand, and decaying organic substances. This combination makes loam particularly useful as a building material. Many bricks are made from loam. It can help you remember loam is used in building if you know that it’s often referred to as "clayey earth." Because of the organic material, loam is also useful as soil for growing crops. This rich soil is helpful in both building and growing.
Vocabulary lists containing loam
Can You Dig It? Words for Dirt and Soil
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Dirty Words: The Language of Gardening
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Physical Geography - Middle School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“You could smell the heavy loam in the deep cool woods—the Yazoo and Big Black rivers were running along,” she tells Lyell after an autumn drive through rural Mississippi in 1935.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 27, 2025
Small asides like these root this character-driven mystery in a spiritual loam, a reflection of Inglesby’s narrative contemplation of day-to-day living as an exercise in faith.
From Salon ● Sep. 7, 2025
Monday morning, workers will begin placing soil — sandy loam mixed with lightweight volcanic aggregate — on the wildlife overpass.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 31, 2025
The result, if we want to get really geeky, is a mix of clay, pure sand and sandy loam.
From BBC ● Nov. 21, 2024
For it is the loam that is giving you that smell.
From "Sula" by Toni Morrison
Grapes here, as in other parts of the world, like moderately rich, free, loamy soils of good depth, free sandy loams, and free alluvial loams.
From Fruits of Queensland by Albert H. Benson
In combination with silica it is one of the most widely distributed of substances, as it enters in large quantity into the composition of granite, traps, slates, schists, clays, loams, and other rocks.
From The New Gresham Encyclopedia. Vol. 1 Part 1 A to Amide by Various
Glacial gravels, clays and loams cover a great deal of the whole area, and the Upper Chalk itself has been disturbed at Reed and Barley by the same agency.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 13, Slice 4 "Hero" to "Hindu Chronology" by Various
On light, sandy soils it will be found wise to turn the whole crop under with the plow, while on heavy loams this plan is of doubtful benefit.
From Farm Gardening with Hints on Cheap Manuring Quick Cash Crops and How to Grow Them by Anonymous
In the Cumberland Plateau and Great Valley Regions are a red or brown loam, rich in decomposed limestone and calcareous shales, and sandy or gravelly loams.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 11, Slice 7 "Geoponici" to "Germany" by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
