Cram

How to spell cram

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce cram

What does cram mean?

1. verbTo force or push something into a space that is barely big enough to hold it.
2. verbTo study a large amount of material hurriedly, usually just before a test or examination.

Cram in a sentence

• He tried to cram a week of clothes into one small carry-on bag.

• She stayed up all night to cram for the accountancy exam.

• Do not cram too much paper into the shredder at once.

• There is no point trying to cram the whole syllabus in one evening.

Where does cram come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends directly from the Old English verb crammian, meaning 'to stuff, to fill full,' which was used of packing food into a container or fattening birds for the table. It belongs to a wider Germanic family of words about pressing and squeezing, and is closely related to Old Norse kremja, 'to squeeze or crush,' and to the same root that gives us 'cramp.' The core sense of forcing too much into too little space has stayed remarkably steady for over a thousand years. The familiar student meaning, hurriedly stuffing facts into the head before an examination, is a much later figurative extension recorded in English from the early nineteenth century. The short, blunt spelling with its single closing consonant reflects its honest Anglo-Saxon origins; there is nothing foreign or fancy hidden in it.

How the word is built

• cram (from Old English crammian: to stuff or fill)
• no affixes