Cherrystone
noun ·3 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Ellipsis of cherrystone clam, a hard clam (Mercenaria mercenaria) that has grown to a size within a certain range, being larger than a countneck, littleneck or topneck but smaller than a quahog. abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis
"Miss Violette Shumberger names twelve dozen cherrystone clams as the second course, and Joe Duffle says two gallons of Philadelphia pepperpot soup as the third."
- 2 a half-grown quahog wordnet
- 3 Synonym of cherry pit.
- 4 small quahog larger than a littleneck; eaten raw or cooked as in e.g. clams casino wordnet
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"Miss Violette Shumberger names twelve dozen cherrystone clams as the second course, and Joe Duffle says two gallons of Philadelphia pepperpot soup as the third."
Etymology
From cherry + stone. The name of the clam came from a fancied resemblance to a cherry's stone. The fancied resemblance is in shape, color, and sheen, not in size; the clams are several inches across.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.