cram

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
8
Words With Friends
10
Letters
4
Pronunciation
/kɹæm/

Definition of cram

14 senses · 3 parts of speech · etymology included

verb

  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”
    “But you still need to check in with the Arch Linux community now and then to make sure that none of their crazy shit is going to be crammed down your throat the next update.”
    “Are we to blame Livingstone for Tube overcrowding? In part, yes, but as Sir John Eliot had observed in 1955, while Chairman of the London Transport Executive: 'They're not crammed in. They cram themselves in.'”
    “The storm has passed when I arrive at Southampton Central, but more fun is to come. The station platforms and waiting rooms are crammed with people, many toting enormous amounts of baggage as they have just come off a cruise liner.”
See all 14 definitions

verb

  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”
    “But you still need to check in with the Arch Linux community now and then to make sure that none of their crazy shit is going to be crammed down your throat the next update.”
    “Are we to blame Livingstone for Tube overcrowding? In part, yes, but as Sir John Eliot had observed in 1955, while Chairman of the London Transport Executive: 'They're not crammed in. They cram themselves in.'”
    “The storm has passed when I arrive at Southampton Central, but more fun is to come. The station platforms and waiting rooms are crammed with people, many toting enormous amounts of baggage as they have just come off a cruise liner.”
  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

  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.”
    “Shut up, and don't tell crams.”
  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.”
    “Pen pals also make and pass around friendship books, slams and crams. In recent years, pen pal correspondence with prison inmates has gained acceptance on the Internet.”

name

  1. A surname.

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

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”).

Anagrams of cram

4 plays · some not in Scrabble

Best play marc 8 points

Words you can make from cram

11 playable · top: MARC (8 pts)

Best play marc 8 points

3-letter words

7 words

2-letter words

3 words

Hooks

3 extensions · 1 front · 2 back

A single letter you can add to cram to make another valid word.

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