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Cram

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cram¹

  • /kɹæm/ UK
  • /kɹam/ British, Midlands, Northern England, Southern, Standard
  • /kɾam/ Scotland, Wales
  • /kɹæm/
  • [kɹɛəm]
  • /kɹæːm/ Australia
  • [kɹæːm] ~(æ-raising)[kɹɛːm] ~ [kɹeːm] Australia
  • /kɹɛm/ New Zealand

Rhymes with -æm

Where it comes from

From Middle English crammen, from Old English crammian (“to cram; stuff”), from Proto-West Germanic *krammōn, from Proto-Germanic *krammōną, a secondary verb derived from *krimmaną (“to stuff”), from Proto-Indo-European *ger- (“to assemble; collect; gather”). Compare Old English crimman (“to cram; stuff; insert; press; bruise”), Icelandic kremja (“to squeeze; crush; bruise”).

verb crams · cramming · crammed

  1. transitive To press, force, or drive, particularly in filling, or in thrusting one thing into another; to stuff; to fill to superfluity. to cram fruit into a basket; to cram a room with people
  2. transitive To fill with food to satiety; to stuff. The boy crammed himself with cake
  3. transitive To put hastily through an extensive course of memorizing or study, as in preparation for an examination. A pupil is crammed by his tutor.
  4. intransitive To study hard; to swot.
  5. intransitive To eat greedily, and to satiety; to stuff oneself.
  6. British, dated, intransitive, slang To lie; to intentionally not tell the truth.
  7. British, dated, slang, transitive To make (a person) believe false or exaggerated tales.

noun crams

  1. countable, uncountable The act of cramming (forcing or stuffing something). But Billy Bunter was only the first in the field. As the news spread, there was a crowd, not to call it a cram, in No. 7 Study: […]
  2. countable, dated, slang, uncountable Information hastily memorized. a cram from an examination
  3. countable, uncountable A warp having more than two threads passing through each dent or split of the reed.
  4. British, countable, dated, slang, uncountable A lie; a falsehood. It is awful, an old un like that telling such crams as she do.
  5. uncountable A mathematical board game in which players take turns placing dominoes horizontally or vertically until no more can be placed, the loser being the player who cannot continue.
  6. countable, uncountable A small friendship book with limited space for people to enter their information. Regular friendship books had a variety of variations, such as slams, crams, and decos.

Cram²

proper noun Crams

  1. A surname.

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