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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Chiefly British A baby carriage.
  2. n. Chiefly New England A small dinghy having a flat, snub-nosed bow.
  3. n. A flatbottom boat used chiefly in the Baltic Sea as a barge.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A flat-bottomed boat or lighter, used in the Netherlands and the Baltic ports for loading and unloading merchant vessels.
  2. n. Milit., a similar barge or lighter mounted with guns, and used as a floating battery.
  3. n. A perambulator.
  4. n. A sort of push-cart for carrying milk on a route to customers.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A small vehicle in which a newborn baby is pushed around in a lying position; a perambulator
  2. n. A flatbottom boat used chiefly in the Baltic Sea as a barge

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. See praam.
  2. n. a perambulator{3}; -- British informal shortened form.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a small vehicle with four wheels in which a baby or child is pushed around

Etymologies

  1. Shortening and alteration of perambulator.Dutch praam, flatbottom boat, from Middle Dutch praem, from Czech prám; see per1 in Indo-European roots.

Examples

  • “A woman leavers a child in pram outside a chemist's shop and goes in.”

    TV Film of the Week: Lost

  • “Throwing the toys out of the pram is putting it mildly but this is censorship by any other name and of the worst possible kind.”

    Well, well, well indeed

  • “Don's eyes widened when he saw that it was a Martian's "pram" - the self-propelled personal environment without which a Martian cannot live either on Earth or Venus.”

    Between Planets

  • “* rant over - picks up toys, puts them back in pram*”

    Today

  • “Throwing your toys out of the pram is the most you have managed to do.”

    On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with...

  • “We had a rough time getting the stuff away undamaged by the sea, but the pram was a wonderful sea-boat and we took it in turns to work her through the surf until everything was away.”

    South with Scott

  • “I don't know how many Norah turned – but when Dad and I got to the spot she was sitting on a thick mat of grass, laughing like one o'clock, and the pram was about half a mile away on the flat with its wheels in the air!”

    A Little Bush Maid

  • “Most of us Americans can translate "pram" and "lorry" and "flats" but ... say, is there a dictionary of British-isms somewhere?”

    Oh dear...

  • “In other words, there are more options available than swapping the "pram" of EU membership for the "reins" of associate membership.”

    Raising the game

  • “It's called "Most Haunted" and I'm reasonably sure it's British as the Most Haunted crew all speak with Brit accents and say things like "pram" and "higgledee-piggledee" and are hanging out somewhere in Essex.”

    weeme Diary Entry

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Lists

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Comments

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‘pram’ has been looked up 1651 times, loved by 1 person, added to 15 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 8.