dam
noun
a barrier to obstruct the flow of water, especially one of earth, masonry, etc., built across a stream or river.
dam
1 American
[dam]
/ dæm /
noun
-
a barrier to obstruct the flow of water, especially one of earth, masonry, etc., built across a stream or river.
-
a body of water confined by a dam.
-
any barrier resembling a dam.
dam
2
American
[dam]
/ dæm /
noun
dam
3
American
abbreviation
Dam
4
American
[dam, dahm]
/ dæm, dɑm /
noun
dam
1
British
/ dæm /
noun
-
a barrier of concrete, earth, etc, built across a river to create a body of water for a hydroelectric power station, domestic water supply, etc
-
a reservoir of water created by such a barrier
-
something that resembles or functions as a dam
verb
Dam
2
British
/ dam /
noun
dam
3
British
/ dæm /
noun
dam
4
British
/ dæm /
interjection
dam
5
British
symbol
dam
Idioms
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
damsimple
-
damssimple
-
have dammedperfect
-
has dammedperfect
-
am dammingprogressive
-
are dammingprogressive
-
is dammingprogressive
-
have been dammingperfect progressive
-
has been dammingperfect progressive
Past
-
dammedsimple
-
had dammedperfect
-
was dammingprogressive
-
were dammingprogressive
-
had been dammingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of dam1
1275–1325; Middle English < Middle Dutch, Middle Low German, dam; akin to Old English for-demman to stop up, block
Origin of dam2
1250–1300; Middle English; variant of dame
Explanation
A barrier built to block the flow of water is called a dam. If you walk along a stream, you can see where beavers have built a dam out of mud and logs. As a verb, dam means to obstruct or blockade as with a dam. If the kids you're babysitting dam up the bathtub drain when you're not paying attention, the water might overflow and cause a waterfall into the living room downstairs. But water isn't the only thing that can be dammed. You shouldn't dam up your emotions — go ahead and scream if you need to.
Vocabulary lists containing dam
"A Modest Proposal," Vocabulary from the satire
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East Asia - Middle School
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East Asia - Introductory
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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:
Raising the dam would inundate habitat along the McCloud.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 14, 2026
On Aug. 26, the alert mechanism failed again and the dam was dashed to pieces.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 9, 2026
That happened back in 2023, after nine years of campaigning, and halted the construction of a hydropower dam that would have damaged the ecosystem.
From Slate ● Sep. 8, 2026
Nepal has almost no large reservoirs capable of doing this: its main storage dam, Kulekhani, holds less than a tenth of a cubic kilometre, "so there's nothing to release", says Sanyal.
From BBC ● Sep. 3, 2026
I got my rod that was leaning against the tree, took the bait-can and landing-net, and walked out onto the dam.
From "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway
It is also one of the cities where thousands of people lost their homes after the collapse of Nova Khakova Dam in 2023, flooding buildings up to their rooftops.
From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2026
Satellite images captured the dramatic change in Lake Powell near Glen Canyon Dam.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 23, 2026
Oleshky was flooded after the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka Dam in June 2023.
From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2026
Last month marked a grim milestone: the combined volume of both reservoirs hit their lowest level since 1957, when Glen Canyon Dam was still under construction.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026
Dam little time to do anything in, but then I am used to that.
From "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
The aqueduct seemed to make the city’s founding river not just obsolete but dangerous, so construction began on catch basins, dams and reservoirs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 17, 2026
The roiling mass of water, unleashed by a glacial collapse, swept down the Trishuli river, devastating a roughly 40-mile corridor of dams that were supposed to drive economic growth for mountainous Nepal.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 9, 2026
Floods tore through mountain districts, and destroyed roads, bridges and and hydropower dams.
From Barron's ● Sep. 3, 2026
A barrier lake is a body of water formed when debris dams up a river.
From BBC ● Aug. 28, 2026
Besides staving off economic collapse, the dams are ideologically beguiling to the family that runs the country.
From "Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West" by Blaine Harden
The deadly flash flood in Nepal on Wednesday likely was caused by a huge chunk of a glacier that broke off and temporarily dammed a river, according to preliminary investigations by scientists.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 27, 2026
Late one night in October 2023, part of the shelf of rocks and ice that dammed the lake in northeast India collapsed.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 1, 2026
Scientists have warned that Himalayan glaciers are melting because of climate change and creating glacial lakes, often dammed by loose rock and debris, which makes them unstable and prone to bursting their banks.
From BBC ● Aug. 16, 2024
It is dammed by a massive ridge of rubble that the glacier piled up over thousands of years.
From National Geographic ● Jan. 10, 2024
When the Zambezi was dammed, the water had pushed up into the river and drowned part of the shoreline.
From "A Girl Named Disaster" by Nancy Farmer
That mass of rock and ice plunged about 800 metres onto a debris-covered glacier, before surging downhill, briefly damming the Lhende River.
From Barron's ● Sep. 4, 2026
Growing up in rural Monmouthshire, she regularly got covered in mud and played for hours in the woods with her younger brother, damming rivers and making dens.
From BBC ● May 30, 2026
Andrew Law, a sociologist at Newcastle University in the U.K., has used lidar mapping to digitally preserve structures along China’s Yangtze River that were threatened or wiped out by extensive damming.
From Slate ● Jul. 25, 2025
Habitat destruction, damming, and pollution have decimated local populations, such that many species are in dire need of help.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 25, 2024
And he pushed the King out of the door, damming it in his face.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
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.
