tram
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tram¹
- /tɹæm/
- /tɹam/ UK, Scotland
- /tɹɛm/ New Zealand
- /ʈɾæm/ India
- [t̠ᶴɹɛə̯m]
- [t̠ᶴɹeə̯m]
- [t̠ᶴɹɛːm]
Rhymes with -æm
Where it comes from
Early 16th century, borrowed from Scots, probably from Low German traam (“tram, shaft of a barrow”), from Middle Low German and Middle Dutch trame (“narrow shaft, beam”), said to be ultimately from a lost West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) word, probably from Proto-Germanic *drum (“splinter, fragment”), from Proto-Indo-European *térmn̥ (“peg, post, boundary”), cognate with Latin terminus.
Compare Middle Low German treme; West Flemish traam, trame.
The popular derivation from the surname of the English pioneer tramway builder Benjamin Outram (1764–1805) is false: the term pre-dated him.
The sense of a rail vehicle derives from tram-way, in its earliest sense meaning literally a log-covered road, but later applied to the earliest wooden railways, used for transporting coal in carts which came to be called "trams".
noun trams
- A passenger vehicle for public use that runs on tracks in the road (called a streetcar or trolley in North America). Lizzie and she got a dozen of large bottles and the loan of a basket and we got a currant pan and a half-pound of cooked ham in the shop next door and got on the tram for Whitehall.
- A similar vehicle for carrying materials. Trams are a kind of sledge on which coals are brought from the place where they are hewn to the shaft. A tram has four wheels but a sledge is without wheels.
- A people mover. The game Half-Life, for example, begins with a movie in which Gordon Freeman, the player's avatar, takes a tram ride through the Black Mesa research complex while a voice explains why he is there.
- An aerial cable car. It's possible that my family took the tram to Roosevelt Island at some point and the experience embedded itself deep into my imagination where it mixed with other flights of fancy (pun intended) of flying through a Gotham-like city like Batman.
- A train with wheels that runs on a road; a trackless train. Taking advantage of the VIP Experience at Universal Studios provides a more intimate and authentic look at the studio than does the regular studio tram tour. […] The VIP Experience gets you off the tram and behind the scenes: into sound stages, prop warehouses, and production facilities and on the s
- A car on a horse railway or tramway (horse trams preceded electric trams). The horse-drawn tram has vanished, and so will the trolley, and some eccentric Berlin writer in the twenties of the twenty-first century, wishing to portray our time, will go to a museum of technological history and locate a hundred-year-old streetcar, yellow, uncouth, with old-fashioned curved seat
- The shaft of a cart. What struck me with most astonishment, however, was the liberal manner of our fair driver, who made no scruple of taking a leap, with the reins in her hand, and seating herself dexterously upon the shafts (or, in Westmoreland phrase, the trams) of the cart.
- One of the rails of a tramway.
verb trams · tramming · trammed
- To operate, or conduct the business of, a tramway.
- To travel by tram.
- To transport (material) by tram.
- To align a component in mechanical engineering or metalworking, particularly the spindle of a mill or drill press, as historically accomplished using a trammel. My invention consists of a frame suspended from another frame, on which the stone rests, and is leveled by screws from below, on which suspended frame are screws, which, being adjusted in the frame when the stone is first leveled by its face, serve afterward to level the stone at any time without re
tram²
- /tɹæm/
- /tɹam/ UK, Scotland
- /tɹɛm/ New Zealand
- /ʈɾæm/ India
- [t̠ᶴɹɛə̯m]
- [t̠ᶴɹeə̯m]
- [t̠ᶴɹɛːm]
Rhymes with -æm
Where it comes from
From Spanish trama, or French trame (“weft”). Doublet of trama.
noun trams
- A silk thread formed of two or more threads twisted together, used especially for the weft, or cross threads, of the best quality of velvets and silk goods. The two types of silk of greatest interest to the hand weaver are known as Organzine and Tram. Organzine is a warp silk and is made from two or more single threads twisted together in the opposite direction from the original twist. Tram is a weft silk and it is made from two or more singles lightly
verb trams · tramming · trammed
- To weave in this manner.
Thesaurus
Closest in meaning: streetcar, tramway, trolley car, tramcar, trolley, ropeway, aerial tramway, cable tramway, bus, subway, rail, train, series, noise, nonsense, tran
Translations
Every language
noun passenger vehicle
| Español | tranvía |
|---|---|
| 한국어 | 노면전차 nomyeonjeoncha, 전차 jeoncha, 트램 teuraem |
| 日本語 | 市内電車 shinai densha, 市電 shiden, トラム toramu, 電車 densha, 路面電車 romen densha |
| 中文 | 有軌電車 /有轨电车 yǒuguǐdiànchē, 電車 /电车 diànchē |
| हिन्दी | ट्राम ṭrām |
| Português | elétrico, bonde |
| Français | tramway, tram |
| Deutsch | Straßenbahn, S-Bahn, Trambahn |
| Italiano | tram |
| Ελληνικά | τραμ tram |
| Română | tramvai |
| Русский | трамва́й tramváj |
| Tiếng Việt | tàu điện |
| العربية | تْرَام trām, تْرَام tram, تْرَامْوَاي tramwāy |
| עברית | חַשְׁמַלִית khashmalít |
noun vehicle for material
| Русский | вагоне́тка vagonétka |
|---|
Talk about this word "tram." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/tram. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. tram. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/tram "tram." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/tram.Cite this
@misc{tram_2026,
title = {tram},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/tram},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
