Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A preserve made from whole fruit boiled to a pulp with sugar.
  • intransitive verb To drive or wedge forcibly into a tight position.
  • intransitive verb To activate or apply (a brake) suddenly. Often used with on:
  • intransitive verb To cause (moving parts, for example) to lock into an unworkable position.
  • intransitive verb To pack (items, for example) to excess; cram.
  • intransitive verb To fill (a container or space) to overflowing.
  • intransitive verb To block, congest, or clog.
  • intransitive verb To crush or bruise.
  • intransitive verb Electronics To interfere with or prevent the clear reception of (broadcast signals) by electronic means.
  • intransitive verb Baseball To throw an inside pitch to (a batter), especially to prevent the batter from hitting the ball with the thicker part of the bat.
  • intransitive verb To become wedged or stuck.
  • intransitive verb To become locked or stuck in an unworkable position.
  • intransitive verb To force one's way into or through a limited space.
  • intransitive verb Music To participate in a jam session.
  • intransitive verb Basketball To make a dunk shot.
  • noun The act of jamming or the condition of being jammed.
  • noun A crush or congestion of people or things in a limited space.
  • noun A trying situation. synonym: predicament.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The title of certain native chiefs in northwestern India.
  • noun Another spelling of jamb, 4.
  • noun An abbreviation of Jamaica.
  • noun A crush; a squeeze; pressure by thrusting or crowding.
  • noun A crowd of objects irregularly and tightly pressed together by arrest of their movement; a block, as of people, vehicles, or floating logs.
  • noun An extra pool in the game of napoleon.
  • noun A conserve of fruits prepared by boiling them to a pulp in water with sugar.
  • To press; squeeze; thrust or press down or in with force or violence; thrust or squeeze in so as to stick fast; press or crowd in such a manner as to prevent motion or hinder extrication.
  • To fill full; block up; prevent the movement of by pressure, crowding, etc.
  • To tread hard or make firm by treading, as land is trodden hard by cattle.
  • To become wedged together or in place, as by violent impact; stick fast: as, the door jams.
  • To push (a bill or measure) through the regular routine of a legislative body by the brute force of a majority controlled by ‘the machine,’ without proper consideration or discussion. [Political slang.]
  • To smear or spread with jam: as, a slice of bread thickly jammed.
  • To become jam; thicken to the consistency of jam.
  • noun In England, a kind of dress worn by children: so called from the Hindu jama, a long muslin gown worn in India by both Mohammedans and Hindus.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A mass of people or objects crowded together; also, the pressure from a crowd; a crush
  • noun colloq. An injury caused by jamming.
  • noun informal A difficult situation.
  • intransitive verb To become stuck so as not to function.
  • intransitive verb (Music) To play an instrument in a jam session.
  • intransitive verb To crowd together; -- usually used with together or in.
  • transitive verb To press into a close or tight position; to crowd; to squeeze; to wedge in; to cram.
  • transitive verb colloq. To crush or bruise.
  • transitive verb (Naut.) To bring (a vessel) so close to the wind that half her upper sails are laid aback.
  • transitive verb To block or obstruct by packing too much (people or objects) into.
  • transitive verb (Radio) To interfere with (a radio signal) by sending other signals of the same or nearby frequency.
  • transitive verb To cause to become nonfunctional by putting something in that blocks the movement of a part or parts.
  • noun (Mining) See jamb.
  • noun A kind of frock for children.
  • noun A preserve of fruit boiled with sugar and water; also called jelly

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Possibly from jam.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Origin unknown.]

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Examples

  • The term jam-eating comes from when people worked in the mines.

    Whitehaven News headlines 2010

  • With the term jam band incorporating everything from blues to bluegrass these days, it's an overused handle that barely describes all the disparate bands lumped within its parameters.

    Broward-Palm Beach New Times | Complete Issue 2009

  • NOW, to celebrate this release, the SMD boys, some of their musical friends, and our pals at Modular UK are throwing a party TONIGHT in London - SMD will be there along with the Klaxons, Mystery Jets, Good Books, and the Modular and Ten Dead Sloanes DJ crews - the jam is at Sin (144 Charing Cross Road - WC2H 0LB) and costs six pounds in advance or eight with your student union card.

    I'm a hustler baby (Music (For Robots)) 2006

  • NOW, to celebrate this release, the SMD boys, some of their musical friends, and our pals at Modular UK are throwing a party TONIGHT in London - SMD will be there along with the Klaxons, Mystery Jets, Good Books, and the Modular and Ten Dead Sloanes DJ crews - the jam is at Sin (144 Charing Cross Road - WC2H 0LB) and costs six pounds in advance or eight with your student union card.

    Music (For Robots): May 2006 Archives 2006

  • One is the - there's not a sufficient amount of what we call jam sessions.

    A Jazz Guitar Legend: Alive, Live and 75 2007

  • We'd do what we called jam-but the only guy who could hold his instrument right side up was Peter Van Gelder.

    Grace Slick The Biography Rowes, Barbara 1980

  • There was no explicit support for radical group Hamas, though a small group of demonstrators made a shout using a pun with the Spanish word jamás ( "never"), whose pronunciation is nearly identical to "Hamas".

    www.blogalaxia.com Directorio y Buscador de Blogs Latinos 2009

  • Since this "jam" is getting a little dated, a number of the pictures posted there have already gone the way of the dodo bird.

    Conan Character Jam! Cromsblood 2010

  • Since this "jam" is getting a little dated, a number of the pictures posted there have already gone the way of the dodo bird.

    Archive 2010-02-01 Cromsblood 2010

  • The cause of the "jam" is a prevalence of south winds for a few days, and then a sudden change to the north -- the first forcing the ice down the Upper Lakes into the river, which is prevented by the north-winds from getting into Lake Ontario.

    Ice Bridge at Niagara. 1863

Comments

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  • "Wireless Teleg. To render (wireless signals) unintelligible by sending out from another instrument other (meaningless) signals or wave impulses."

    December 14, 2006

  • Graph.

    August 12, 2008