A female parent; -- used of beasts, especially of quadrupeds; sometimes applied in contempt to a human mother.
A kind or crowned piece in the game of draughts.
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.
A firebrick wall, or a stone, which forms the front of the hearth of a blast furnace.
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.
We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's dam is the history we make today. Henry Ford
One may as well dam for water tanks the people's cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man. John Muir
Reduce the number of lawyers. They are like beavers - they get in the middle of the stream and dam it up. Donald Rumsfeld
You might as well try and dam Niagara Falls with toothpicks as to stop the reform wave sweeping our land. Billy Sunday
My hand does the work and I don't have to think; in fact, were I to think, it would stop the flow. It's like a dam in the brain that bursts. Edna O'Brien
