Gram

How to spell gram

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce gram

What does gram mean?

1. nounA metric unit of mass equal to one thousandth of a kilogram.

Gram in a sentence

• Each tablet contains less than one gram of the active ingredient.

• The postage rises once a parcel passes a single gram.

Where does gram come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word comes from the Greek gramma, which literally meant 'a letter of the alphabet' or 'something written', built on the verb graphein, 'to write'. In the later Greek and Roman world the same word took on a second life as the name of a tiny unit of weight, roughly the mass of one scruple. French scientists revived this ancient measure when they devised the metric system in the 1790s, coining gramme as the base unit of mass. English borrowed the French word in the early 1800s and, in American usage especially, trimmed the final letters to produce 'gram'. The same Greek root still shows up in everyday relatives like 'grammar', 'diagram', and 'telegram', so the spelling links a measure of weight to the much older idea of marks on a page.

How the word is built

• gram (from Greek gramma: a small weight, literally a written letter)

British and American spelling

Gram is the American spelling. British English spells it gramme.