Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To leave a scene at once; go abruptly.
- v. To shut down automatically. Used of a nuclear reactor.
- n. A rapid shutting down of a nuclear reactor, especially in an emergency.
Wiktionary
- v. Get out of here; go away (frequently imperative).
- v. To abruptly insert the control rods of a nuclear reactor, usually in case of emergency shutdown.
- n. A rapid shutdown of a nuclear reactor
- n. alternative spelling of SCRAM.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. to leave; to go away; used mostly as an impolite command to a person to go away from a specific location.
- v. to shut down (a nuclear reactor) quickly, as in an emergency.
- n. the rapid shut down of a nuclear reactor, as in an emergency.
WordNet 3.0
- v. leave immediately; used usually in the imperative form
Etymologies
- Perhaps short for scramble.
Examples
“O'BRIEN: NASA set a speed record on Saturday with the launch of the unmanned test aircraft called a scram jet.”
“Electrical problems yesterday grounded the so-called scram jet.”
“I didn't hear what she said, so didn't respond, but the person-of-few-words who worked the booth with me said, simply, "scram" and she hustled away.”
“She pulled a switchblade on me, said if I didn't scram she was going to cut me seven ways to Sunday.”
“What the people in these countries want is substantial change -- namely freedom and the heads of the regimes to pack their bags and scram.”
The Huffington Post: Dan Dorfman: Risky Roadmap to $7 a Gallon Gas
“I know 2 grad students who lost their TAs and 4 postdocs who were given Dec deadlines to scram.”
““No, you mook—you grab as many electric toothbrushes as you can, then we scram—got it?””
“Transformer damage caused the reactor to "scram" or automatically trip out of service Saturday night.”
The Wall Street Journal: Irene Knocks Out Power to More Than Five Million
“This kind of scram is stressful on the reactor," said Robert Albrecht , a University of Washington professor emeritus of electrical engineering, who has a background in nuclear engineering.”
“You put together a nifty consortium of BigWigs – NRC, Electric Power Research Institute, Department of Energy – to simply re-write the laws of physics and claim that some of the control rods are only there to "shape" the reaction, and don't have to fall to shut off the fission during a scram.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘scram’.
-
old timey talk
Words or Sayings from the 1920's or whatever that no one really uses anymore (at least in that context).
scram, bearcat, heavens to betsy, dick, double-cross, ducky, gams, goofy, hooch, jalopy, john, joe and 174 more...
-
Git!
Shoo! Scram! Go on now! Nothing to see! Move it!
shoo, scram, get going, move it, move along, go on now, nothing to see, scat, skedaddle, vamoose, beat it, make tracks and 37 more...
oroboros Marcs in reverse. Marc is winemaking residue that can be used for distillation. Nov 2, 2007