Word.ws English Dictionary

cleam

UK/kliːm/US/klim/

cleam verb: to smear, rub on, or anoint; to bedaub with an oily or sticky substance.

Verb

cleam (third-person singular simple present cleams, present participle cleaming, simple past and past participle cleamed)

  1. (dialectal, transitive) To smear, rub on, or anoint; to bedaub with an oily or sticky substance.
  2. (dialectal, transitive) To cause to stick; to glue on.
  3. (dialectal, intransitive) To stick, cling to, or adhere.

Forms of cleam

third-person singular presentcleams
present participlecleaming
past participlecleamed
pastcleamed
alternative formclame
alternative formclaim

Origin of cleam

From Middle English clemen, from Old English clǣman (“to smear, anoint”), from Proto-West Germanic *klaimijan, from Proto-Germanic *klaimijaną (“to smear with clay, mortar”), from Proto-Indo-European *gley- (“to stick, glue”).

Questions about cleam

What does cleam mean?
Cleam means to smear, rub on, or anoint; to bedaub with an oily or sticky substance.
What part of speech is cleam?
Cleam is a verb.
How do you pronounce cleam?
Cleam is pronounced /kliːm/ (UK).
What is the past tense of cleam?
The past tense of cleam is cleamed.

Words near cleam in the dictionary

  1. CLE
  2. Clea
  3. clead
  4. cleading
  5. cleadings
  6. cleam
  7. cleamed
  8. cleaming
  9. cleams
  10. clean
  11. clean and jerk

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cleam (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.

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