cram Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. verb crowd or pack to capacity
    wad; ram; jampack; jam; chock up.
    • the theater was jampacked
  2. verb put something somewhere so that the space is completely filled
    • cram books into the suitcase
  3. verb study intensively, as before an exam
    drum; grind away; swot up; bone up; get up; bone; mug up; swot.
    • I had to bone up on my Latin verbs before the final exam
  4. verb prepare (students) hastily for an impending exam

WordNet

Cram transitive verb
Etymology
AS. crammian to cram; akin to Icel. kremia to squeeze, bruise, Sw. krama to press. Cf. Cramp.
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Crammed present participle & verbal noun Cramming
Definitions
  1. To press, force, or drive, particularly in filling, or in thrustung one thing into another; to stuff; to crowd; to fill to superfluity; as, to cram anything into a basket; to cram a room with people.
    Their storehouses crammed with grain. Shak.
    He will cram his brass down our throats. Swift.
  2. To fill with food to satiety; to stuff.
    Children would be freer from disease if they were not crammed so much as they are by fond mothers. Locke.
    Cram us with praise, and make us As fat as tame things. Shak.
  3. To put hastily through an extensive course of memorizing or study, as in preparation for an examination; as, a pupil is crammed by his tutor.
Cram intransitive verb
Definitions
  1. To eat greedly, and to satiety; to stuff.
    Gluttony . . . . Crms, and blasphemes his feeder. Milton.
  2. To make crude preparation for a special occasion, as an examination, by a hasty and extensive course of memorizing or study. Colloq.
Cram noun
Definitions
  1. The act of cramming.
  2. Innformation hastily memorized; as. a cram from an examination. Colloq.
  3. (Weaving) A warp having more than two threads passing through each dent or split of the reed.

Webster 1913