clam up
Britishverb
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.
The question prompts Epstein to clam up: “Send me a number to call I don’t like records of these conversations.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 12, 2026
Another factor is “just having extreme social anxiety for a long, long time. People were fascinating to me, but also scary. I would kind of clam up around people because my brain would short-circuit.”
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 2, 2024
JPMorgan said an important part of its more positive view on European CRE was the willingness of European banks to continue providing finance to the sector as wholesale funding markets have started to clam up.
From Reuters • Mar. 28, 2023
S.B.F.’s media tour may have played a role: While most executives under criminal investigation clam up, the crypto entrepreneur has spoken out over and over again.
From New York Times • Dec. 13, 2022
“Superstitious folk don’t like to talk about things they’re afraid of. He was about to clam up, and I needed to know what he’d seen in the forest.”
From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss
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.
