Clammy

a. Also 5 claymy, 6–7 clammye, (7 clamy). [Form-history obscure: first found as claymy 1398–1495, clammy c. 1425, dates which agree with the first appearance of CLAM a.¹ and v.¹, with which it is now associated in sense. It may have been thence formed with suffix -Y: cf. sticky, clingy. But it is also possible that an earlier *clámiʓ, from OE. clám, mud, sticky clay, CLOAM, was shortened to clammy (cf. silly, sorry, hallow), and then associated with CLAM a. and v. Further evidence is wanted.]

  1.  gen. Soft, moist and sticky; viscous, tenacious, adhesive.

1398.  Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., VI. i. (1495), 186. The fyrste chyldhode wythout teeth is yet ful tender and nesshe and qwauy and claymy.

1528.  Paynel, Salerne Regim., O iij b. An yele is a slymye fyshe, clammy, and specialy a stopper.

1551.  Turner, Herbal, I. (1568), A vj b. It hath blewe floures, the hole herbe is clammy, and hath a stronge sauoure.

1570.  Levins, Manip., 101. Clammye, tenax, viscosus.

a. 1793.  G. White, Selborne (1853), II. lii. 300. The web was of a very clammy quality.

1865.  Lubbock, Preh. Times, xiii. (1878), 475. A soft substance, rather clammy and sweet.

  b.  Of bread: Doughy. Of soil, earth: Moist and unctuous.

1530.  Palsgr., 307/2. Clammy as breed is, nat through baken, pasteux.

1555.  Fardle Facions, I. ii. 33. The earth at that tyme beyng but clammie and softe.

1560.  Whitehorne, Ord. Souldiours (1573), 44 b. This redde earth is the fattest, and the clammiest of all the rest.

1655.  Moufet & Bennet, Health’s Improv. (1746), 340. The oven … not too hot at the first, lest the outside be burnt and the inside clamy.

1872.  Baker, Nile Tribut., viii. 131. I followed the herd for about a mile to no purpose, through deep clammy ground and high grass.

  c.  Of liquids: Viscid.

1540.  Elyot, Image Gov., 72. Great abundance of superfluouse humours, thicke and clammie.

1650.  Fuller, Pisgah, II. xiii. 270. No vessels sailing thereon [Dead Sea], the clammy water being a real Remora to obstruct their passage.

1720.  Gay, Poet. Wks. (1745), II. 78. Where the long table floats with clammy beer.

1830.  Lindley, Nat. Syst. Bot., 128. Trees … yielding a clammy juice.

  d.  Of vapor, perspiration, mist, etc.: Damp, and as it were clinging to the skin.

1635.  Swan, Spec. M., v. § 2 (1643), 91. Clammie Exhalations are scattered abroad in the aire.

1697.  Bp. Patrick, Comm. Ex. x. 21. 173. Thick Darkness … made, I suppose, by such clammy Foggs that they sensibly affected the Egyptians.

a. 1703.  Pomfret, Poet. Wks. (1833), 91. When to the margin of the grave we come … Our face is moistened with a clammy sweat.

1872.  Black, Adv. Phaeton, II. xxv. 197. Stifling in the clammy atmosphere of Soho.

  e.  Of the skin, etc.: Suffused with sticky damp, e.g., in the death-sweat.

c. 1425.  Cookery Bks. (1888), 25. Ȝif þin hond waxe clammy.

1626.  T. H., trans. Caussin’s Holy Crt., 38. His hands are globes made round, there is nothing rugged, clammy, or bowed.

1795.  Southey, Joan of Arc, VI. 448. The cold sweat stands Upon his clammy limbs.

a. 1839.  Praed, Poems (1864), I. 203. The sign of the Cross on his clammy brow.

  † 2.  fig. Sluggish, lagging (like a clammy slug).

a. 1613.  Overbury, A Wife (1638), 99. His dull eye, and lowring head, and a certain clammy benummed pace.