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:
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
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
Her foot sank into the loam a little too much, and she jerked back, heart pounding.
From Anya and the Nightingale by Sofiya Pasternack
Their poor soils are distinctively sandy, those of the lowlands clayey; but these elements are usually found combined in rich loams characterized by the predominance of one or the other constituent.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Slice 5 "Arculf" to "Armour, Philip" by Various
Soil.—The soils of the lowlands are prevailing sandy loams, with a covering of rich mould.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 6 "Cockaigne" to "Columbus, Christopher" by Various
Soil.—Sand and loams in great variety, grading from mere sand to adobe, make up the soils of the state.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 1 "Calhoun" to "Camoens" by Various
Such soil is better than light sand, or some of the poorer loams.
From Soil Culture by J. H. Walden
It is most common in sandy or gravelly loams, and is absent from the hard clay soils.
From The Mammals of Washtenaw County, Michigan Occasional Papers of the Museum of Zoology, No. 123 by Norman Wood
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