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noun

Dam n.

A female parent; used of beasts, especially of quadrupeds; sometimes applied in contempt to a human mother. "Our sire and dam, now confined to horses, are a relic of this age (13th century)...Dame is used of a hen; we now make a great difference between dame and dam." "The dam runs lowing up and down, Looking the way her harmless young one went."

A king or crowned piece in the game of draughts.

Dam n.

A barrier to prevent the flow of a liquid; esp., a bank of earth, or wall of any kind, as of masonry or wood, built across a water course, to confine and keep back flowing water.

(Metal.) A firebrick wall, or a stone, which forms the front of the hearth of a blast furnace.

Dam plate (Blast Furnace), an iron plate in front of the dam, to strengthen it.

verb

Dam v. t. (past & past part. dammed; pres. part. damming)

To obstruct or restrain the flow of, by a dam; to confine by constructing a dam, as a stream of water; generally used with in or up. "I'll have the current in this place dammed up." "A weight of earth that dams in the water."

To shut up; to stop up; to close; to restrain. "The strait pass was dammed With dead men hurt behind, and cowards."

To dam out, to keep out by means of a dam.

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Etymology of 'Dam'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Dam" Quotes from Famous Books

... went down rapidly while the boat was building, and when they tried to sail their new craft it stuck midway across the dam of Rutledge's mill at New Salem, a village of fifteen or twenty houses not many miles from their starting-point. With its bow high in air, and its stern under water, it looked like some ungainly fish trying to fly, or some bird making an unsuccessful attempt ...

— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay

... passed in labored slowness, she kept the matter to herself, though to her it was not merely a visit. It was a time from which she dated other times. It was the day upon which her dam had broken: the dam of her carefully reared fallacy. From that day on she could no longer fall back on the idea of a discredited Stuart in support of her efforts to ...

— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... yet to resolve small residual disputes along the Caprivi Strip, including the Situngu marshlands along the Linyanti River; downstream Botswana residents protest Namibia's planned construction of the Okavango hydroelectric dam at Popavalle (Popa Falls); Botswana has built electric fences to stem the thousands of Zimbabweans who flee to find work and escape political persecution; Namibia has long supported and in 2004 Zimbabwe dropped objections to ...

— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... lake, and by means of their works at such places, and at Union Bridge, a few miles below, were enabled to keep back the waters of the lake, and to use them as occasion should require to supply the mills at Lowell. The plaintiff alleged that the dam at Union Bridge had caused the water to rise higher than was done by the dam that existed in the year 1828, and that he was essentially injured thereby. The case had been on trial nearly seven weeks. Evidence equivalent ...

— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... with a little sugar and hot water. Perpetual contact with fresh air and the fields and the mountains gave him a healthy body, while the religion that he learned in the little church down by the mill-dam kept him in healthy spirits. Fielding keeps a great drove of cattle and has an overflowing dairy. As we handed him the cheese he said, "I really believe this is of my own making." "Fielding," I inquired, "how does your dairy thrive, and have you any new stock on your farm? Come give us a little ...

— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage

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