clamp

plural clamps

1. A brace, band, or clasp for strengthening or holding things that are apart together.
2. medicineAn instrument used to temporarily shut off blood vessels, etc.
3. UKA parking enforcement device used to immobilise a car until it can be towed or a fine is paid; a wheel clamp.
4. A pile of materials to be heated in a controlled way, stacked or heaped together with fuel so that the fire permeates the pile; the material of interest may be bricks to be fired, ore for roasting, coal for coking, or wood to be charcoalized.

   [T]he pots would be stacked in a heap, covered with wood chippings and brushwood and domed over with turves, leaving a few air vents around the sides. When complete the clamp would be fired[.]

   1983, Barry Cunliffe, chapter 8, in Danebury Hillfort, Stroud: Tempus

5. agricultureA compact pile of agricultural produce (such as root vegetables or silage) used for temporary storage (often covered with straw, earth, or both).
6. A piece of wood (batten) across the grain of a board end to keep it flat, as in a breadboard.
7. businessAn electronic circuit that fixes either the positive or the negative peak excursions of a signal to a defined value by shifting its DC value.

present singular third person clamps · participle present clamping · participle past clamped · past clamped

1. intransitivetransitiveTo fasten in place or together with (or as if with) a clamp.

   1 more example

   As we burst into the room, the Count turned his face, and the hellish look that I had heard described seemed to leap into it. His eyes flamed red with devilish passion. The great nostrils of the white aquiline nose opened wide and quivered at the edge, and the white sharp teeth, behind the full lips of the blood dripping mouth, clamped together like those of a wild beast.

   1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula, Westminster [London]: Archibald Constable and Company, […], →OCLC

2. transitiveTo hold or grip tightly.
3. transitiveTo modify (a numeric value) so it lies within a specific range by replacing values outside the range with the closest value within the range.

   After the depth range is clamped, the depth value is read from the depth stencil buffer, and the two values are compared with a selectable depth-comparison function […]

   2016, Jason Zink, Matt Pettineo, Jack Hoxley, Practical Rendering and Computation with Direct3D 11, page 253

4. UKobsoletetransitiveTo cover (vegetables, etc.) with earth.
5. transitiveTo immobilise (a vehicle) by means of a wheel clamp.

   I was only parked there for five minutes but my car was still clamped.

plural clamps

1. datedA heavy footstep; a tramp.

present singular third person clamps · participle present clamping · participle past clamped · past clamped

1. datedintransitiveTo tread heavily or clumsily; to clump or clomp.

   the policeman with clamping feet

   1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC

plural Clamps

1. A surname.