Word.ws English Dictionary

clambake

/ˈklæmˌbeɪk/

clambake noun: an informal beach party in which food, usually seafood, is cooked in a firepit dug in the sand, filled with hot coals.

Noun

clambake (plural clambakes)

  1. (New-England) An informal beach party in which food, usually seafood, is cooked in a firepit dug in the sand, filled with hot coals.
    • In Newport, R. I., the clambake is more than just a way to pass a summer afternoon; it’s a beloved New England tradition that locals take very seriously. […] Traditionally, a clambake involves building a fire pit, coating the hot rocks and coals with seaweed and cooking a mélange of treats —...2015 July 10, Alexandria Symonds, “How to Throw a Clambake Like You’re From Rhode Island”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
  2. (California, Northwestern, US, slang) An instance of smoking (usually marijuana) in an enclosed space.
    Synonyms:
    hotbox
  3. (slang, vulgar) A meeting of predominantly females.
    Synonyms:
    taco fest

Adjective

clambake (not comparable)

  1. (figuratively) Informal, makeshift, sloppy.
    • not in their Ivy privilege or clambake geography2004, New Yorker, 9-16 August

Verb

clambake (third-person singular simple present clambakes, present participle clambaking, simple past and past participle clambaked)

  1. (California, Northwestern, US, intransitive, slang) To smoke marijuana in an enclosed space such as a car with the windows up.
    • When I was 16, I used to clambake with these two friends almost every day on the way to school1995 October 6, Nicholas Meshes, “My Favorite Story”, in alt.drugs.pot (Usenet)
    • i love clmabaking..it's been so long since ive done it though..i remember once my friends and i were clambaking at the forest preserve in the car and this ranger comes along so we roll all the windows down and there was like a huge cloud floating over the car.1999 November 13, Jozlyn, “clam bake?”, in alt.drugs.pot (Usenet)
  2. (California, Northwestern, US, slang, transitive) To enclose something and fill it with smoke by smoking (usually marijuana) inside it.
    • We clambaked the car last night!

Synonyms of clambake

Forms of clambake

Noun
pluralclambakes
alternative formclam bake
Verb
third-person singular presentclambakes
present participleclambaking
past participleclambaked
pastclambaked

Origin of clambake

From clam + bake.

Questions about clambake

What does clambake mean?
Clambake means an informal beach party in which food, usually seafood, is cooked in a firepit dug in the sand, filled with hot coals.
What part of speech is clambake?
Clambake can be a noun, an adjective or a verb.
How do you pronounce clambake?
Clambake is pronounced /ˈklæmˌbeɪk/ (US).
What is the plural of clambake?
The plural of clambake is clambakes.

Words near clambake in the dictionary

  1. clamations
  2. clamato
  3. clamatorial
  4. clamatory
  5. clamatos
  6. clambake
  7. clambaked
  8. clambakes
  9. clambaking
  10. clamber
  11. clambered

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: clambake (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-clambake.wav.

Cite this entry: “clambake.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/clambake. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.