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Glite Dictionary
🚧 A blockage 🌲 A pile of logs
logjam

logjam

1 7.1
A large pile of logs that blocks a river's flow
  • noun
  • /ˈlɔɡˌdʒæm/
: acumulación de troncos
  • The way down the Atchafalaya was once blocked by a huge logjam.
  • a huge logjam

Examples

  • There's a logjam below the Hillary Step.

    Everest (2015)

  • It took them three days to portage around a logjam.

    Fiction book (1991)

  • At the foot of the path, Mary climbed over the logjam of driftwood cast up by the winter storms, then paused to savor the sun on the sea.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • At the foot of the path, Mary climbed over the logjam of driftwood cast up by the winter storms.

  • In 1876, a couple of enterprising pioneers undertook to remove the logjam, hoping to profit from the lumber.

Idioms

to hit a logjam
  • US
8.1

Progress stops because people disagree or something blocks it

How Blocked

logjam
1 7.1
obstruction
37 4.4
slack
1 8.0
to flow
364 1.0

Surface Forms

logjam singular
logjams plural

Morphology

logjam = log + jam (transparent) = log + jam

Literal compound whose meaning ('pile of logs blocking a flow') is directly derived from 'log' + 'jam'.

Etymology

Logjam originally named a pile of logs that fell into a river and became a tight jam ('stuck'), so the logs blocked the water. That's why a logjam means a large pile of logs that stops the flow of a river.