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:
That’s ancient history to most of us, making it fertile loam for speculative interpretation.
From Salon ● Jun. 21, 2026
Stories multiply like toadstools in forest loam in the fiction of Thomas Pynchon, America’s most devout skeptic of the narrative urge, yet also one of its greatest exponents.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 12, 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
It’s a sandy loam mixed with lightweight volcanic aggregate to provide the volume and moisture needed to support plant life while reducing the weight on the structure and allowing for easy drainage.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 29, 2024
Her foot sank into the loam a little too much, and she jerked back, heart pounding.
From Anya and the Nightingale by Sofiya Pasternack
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
The third class of soils are free sandy loams, either scrub or forest.
From Fruits of Queensland by Albert H. Benson
The soil is good, however, despite the fact that each dry season the fires destroy the grasses and the loams which are necessary for their nourishment.
From Through South Africa His Visit to Rhodesia, the Transvaal, Cape Colony, Natal by Henry M. (Henry Morton) Stanley
The result is a great destruction of the humus of the soil, and great leaching and washing, especially in the light loams of the hill country of the United States.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 5 "Cosway" to "Coucy" by Various
The pioneers of empire, for all time, Are gold-dust, from the placers of our homes— The surface croppings from a nation's prime, The mellow acre of the richest loams.
From Montezuma An Epic on the Origin and Fate of the Aztec Nation by Hiram Hoyt Richmond
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.
