Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Chiefly British A baby carriage.
- n. Chiefly New England A small dinghy having a flat, snub-nosed bow.
- n. A flatbottom boat used chiefly in the Baltic Sea as a barge.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A flat-bottomed boat or lighter, used in the Netherlands and the Baltic ports for loading and unloading merchant vessels.
- n. Milit., a similar barge or lighter mounted with guns, and used as a floating battery.
- n. A perambulator.
- n. A sort of push-cart for carrying milk on a route to customers.
Wiktionary
- n. UK, Australia, New Zealand A small vehicle, usually covered, in which a newborn baby is pushed around in a lying position; a perambulator.
- n. nautical, historical A flat-bottomed barge used on shallow shores to convey cargo to and from ships that cannot enter the harbour.
- n. nautical, historical A similar barge used as platform for cannons in shallow waters which seagoing warships cannot enter.
- n. A type of dinghy with a flat bow.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Naut.) See praam.
- n. a perambulator{3}; -- British informal shortened form.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a small vehicle with four wheels in which a baby or child is pushed around
Etymologies
- Dutch praam ("a flat-bottomed boat"). (Wiktionary)
- Shortening and alteration of perambulator.Dutch praam, flatbottom boat, from Middle Dutch praem, from Czech prám. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“A woman leavers a child in pram outside a chemist's shop and goes in.”
“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.”
“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.”
“* rant over - picks up toys, puts them back in pram*”
“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.”
“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!”
“Most of us Americans can translate "pram" and "lorry" and "flats" but ... say, is there a dictionary of British-isms somewhere?”
“In other words, there are more options available than swapping the "pram" of EU membership for the "reins" of associate membership.”
“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.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘pram’.
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UK Usage - Find US Equivalent
All these terms have a (different) American English equivalent. Wonder if you can identify them?
abridgement (abri..., accoutrement, accoutre, acknowledgement (..., opposite, advert, adaptor, adapter, sticking plaster, advertise, adviser (advisor ..., adze, aesthete and 1196 more...
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Band or Brand?
Band names that are also common words or phrases.
genesis, who, beatles, journey, germs, sublime, doors, cars, nirvana, bangles, tool, pixies and 192 more...
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Irish English that's not in American ...
Well-known phrases in Irish English that aren't understood in American English.
or next offer, hoover, plaster, soother, chimnea, craic, bits and bobs, grinds, jumper, mum, chancer, ticks all the boxes and 60 more...
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Fun with Apocopes
Words created by removing the end of a longer or original word. See also Fun with Aphesis.
abs, ad, bio, veg, veggie, tux, auto, bike, carbs, pecs, bro, sis and 186 more...
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Words I have to learn
exasperate, felony, weld, fraud, worksheet, ransom, rehearse, preliminary, offshore, parole, infamous, sieve and 436 more...
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ktrey's wordlist
Words that I like.
Many may be lexicographically impotent due to a lack of citations and definition. Hopefully I'll be able to rectify this eventually.velleity, dispositive, bloviate, bibulous, fungible, concupiscence, avuncular, carnaptious, thrawn, hypocoristic, diegesis, lagniappe and 928 more...
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Fall Words 2009
sgraffito, maestá, tempera, size, gesso, obsolescence, hinterland, taboret, pram, amygdalate, pandect, loggia and 105 more...
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Ptolemy's Gate
Words and phrases from Jonathan Stroud's book, Ptolemy's Gate.
fall afoul, fleet, tamarisk, krait, inkstone, hotted up, down-market, have a truck with, brio, fatalistic, knock-kneed, conserve and 210 more...
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learning
A list of words whose meanings I am learning, either because a) I don't know the meaning b) I know the meaning, but could stand to better appreciate certain inflections or secondary meanings or c) ...
louche, educe, loam, cob, sclerotic, palliate, axial, syndicalist, ecumenical, sally, fatuous, parvenu and 1381 more...
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drseatbelt's Words
bilious, centenarian, droll, palliative, cortege, stultify, polysemy, suffuse, lambent, timorous, aegis, modicum and 236 more...
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Magic or Madness
Words from the glossaries in the back of the novels.
ambo, arse, bickie, biscuit, bloke, boong, bottlebrush, bronze medallion, bugger, bunyip, cardie, chips and 79 more...
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Stuffie: Put Your Weight Into It
Stuffie #4. Stuff you push.
door, broom, mop, envelope, luck, button, agenda, vacuum cleaner, issue, boundary, lawnmower, pencil and 20 more...
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chiefly british
windlestraw, boffin, poppet, bloody, motorway, telly, git, tyre, windscreen, zebra crossing, panda car, lorry and 61 more...
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crckntoast's Words
usufruct, inimitable, pram, carouser, solipsist, flounder, prescient, oneiric
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Peter Pan
Words from Peter Pan and Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens.
Tweets
Looking for tweets for pram.
jodi For AmE use baby carriage or the more modern stroller Apr 18, 2011