as happy as a clam

Meaning

Origin

The full version is 'as happy as a clam at high tide'. Clams enjoy such times as they are free from the attentions of predators then.

John G Saxe, the American writer best known for his poem 'The Blind Men and the Elephant', used the phrase in his 'Sonnet to a Clam', in the late 1840s: Inglorious friend! most confident I am Thy life is one of very little ease; Albeit men mock thee with their similes, And prate of being "happy as a clam!" What though thy shell protects thy fragile head From the sharp bailiffs of the briny sea? Thy valves are, sure, no safety-valves to thee, While rakes are free to desecrate thy bed, And bear thee off, - as foemen take their spoil, Far from thy friends and family to roam; Forced, like a Hessian, from thy native home, To meet destruction in a foreign broil! Though thou art tender, yet thy humble bard Declares, 0 clam! thy case is shocking hard! The phrase probably originated in the US before the 1840s. In 1848 the Southern Literary Messenger - Richmond, Virginia expressed the opinion that that the phrase "is familiar to every one".