Definitions

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

  • noun A male sheep.
  • noun Any of several devices used to drive, batter, or crush by forceful impact, especially.
  • noun A battering ram.
  • noun The weight that drops in a pile driver or steam hammer.
  • noun The plunger or piston of a force pump or hydraulic press.
  • noun A hydraulic ram.
  • noun A projection on the prow of a warship, used to batter or cut into enemy vessels.
  • noun A ship having such a projection.
  • transitive verb To strike or drive against with a heavy impact; butt.
  • transitive verb To force or press into place.
  • transitive verb To cram; stuff.
  • transitive verb To force passage or acceptance of.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The male of the sheep, Ovis aries, and other ovine quadrupeds; a tup. See cuts under Ovis and quadricornous.
  • Strong; as a prefix, very: used as a prefix in ramshackle, rambustious, etc.
  • Strong-scented; stinking: as, ram as a fox.
  • To strike with a ram; drive a ram or similar object against; batter: as, the two vessels tried to ram each other.
  • To force in; drive down or together: as, to ram down a cartridge; to ram a charge; to ram piles into the earth.
  • To fill or compact by pounding or driving.
  • To stuff as if with a ram; cram.
  • To beat or pound anything, in any of the transitive senses of ram.
  • noun An instrument for battering, crushing, butting, or driving by impact.
  • noun A solid pointed projection or beak jutting from the bow of a war-vessel, used both in ancient and in recent times for crushing in an enemy's vessel by being driven against it. See def. 2, and cut under embolon.
  • noun The heavy weight of a pile-driving machine, which falls upon the head of the pile: same as monkey, 3.
  • noun The piston in the large cylinder of a hydraulic press.
  • noun A hooped spar used in ship-building for moving timbers by a jolting blow on the end.
  • noun In metal-working, a steam-hammer used in forming a bloom.
  • noun A steam ship of war armed at the prow below the water-line with a heavy metallic beak or spur, intended to destroy an enemy's ship by the force of collision.

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

  • transitive verb To butt or strike against; to drive a ram against or through; to thrust or drive with violence; to force in; to drive together; to cram
  • transitive verb To fill or compact by pounding or driving.
  • noun The male of the sheep and allied animals. In some parts of England a ram is called a tup.
  • noun Aries, the sign of the zodiac which the sun enters about the 21st of March.
  • noun The constellation Aries, which does not now, as formerly, occupy the sign of the same name.
  • noun An engine of war used for butting or battering.
  • noun In ancient warfare, a long beam suspended by slings in a framework, and used for battering the walls of cities; a battering-ram.
  • noun A heavy steel or iron beak attached to the prow of a steam war vessel for piercing or cutting down the vessel of an enemy; also, a vessel carrying such a beak.
  • noun A hydraulic ram. See under Hydraulic.
  • noun The weight which strikes the blow, in a pile driver, steam hammer, stamp mill, or the like.
  • noun The plunger of a hydraulic press.
  • noun (Fort.), (Paleon.) An ammonite.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A male sheep.
  • noun A battering ram; a heavy object used for breaking through doors.
  • noun A warship intended to sink other ships by ramming them.
  • noun A piston powered by hydraulic pressure.
  • verb transitive To intentionally collide with (a ship) with the intention of damaging or sinking it.
  • verb transitive To strike (something) hard, especially with an implement.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb crowd or pack to capacity

Etymologies

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

[Middle English, from Old English ramm.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English ramm.

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Examples

Comments

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  • Mar in reverse.

    November 3, 2007

  • almost inevitably a policeman, in the Bollywood universe. he's righteous and up-standing, though not a leading man (cf. the actual mythic Ram, who was THE leading man)

    August 3, 2009