Gam

A simple word can have many meanings. I knew the slightly archaic meaning of ‘gam’ which is slang for leg.

There are, however, three additional meanings for the word, as well as meanings for its use as a preface and suffix and one for its use as an abbreviation. A versatile combination of only three letters.

From the Scottish, ‘gam’ can also mean a large or crooked tooth. So another body part.

The third meaning in my dictionary is “a visit or friendly conversation, especially between whalers or other seamen at sea or ashore” (though it can also be used more generally as having a gam with friends). The word can also be used for a pod of whales.

‘Gam’ or ‘gamo’ comes from the Greek gamos, meaning marriage and we see its use in such words as bigamy and gamogenesis.

As a suffix, ‘gam’ is used for plants and specific types of reproduction e.g. ‘cryptogam’ (reproducing by means of spores).

‘Gam’ can also be used as an abbreviation for gamut.

So here’s a sentence:

I stretched my gams to walk over to the coffee shop and have a gam with my friends, and in the process our gam ran the gam from gams of whales to bigamy.

I prefer a little more variety in my sentences, but on the other hand, if you want to puzzle someone, it’s rather a useful word.