Ram

How to spell ram

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce ram

What does ram mean?

1. nounAn adult uncastrated male sheep.
2. verbTo strike or push something with great force.

Ram in a sentence

• noun

  The farmer kept one ram to breed with his flock of ewes.

• verb

  The runaway truck began to ram the concrete barrier at the junction.

• noun

  A young ram with curling horns grazed near the fence.

• verb

  Do not try to ram so many appointments into a single afternoon.

Where does ram come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native Old English word, recorded as 'ramm' to describe an uncastrated male sheep. Its roots lie in the West Germanic languages, with relatives in Old High German and Dutch, though scholars are not fully certain about the deeper ancestor; one suggestion links it to a sense of strength or potency. Because a male sheep charges head first and butts with great force, the noun gave rise to a verb meaning 'to strike or drive with heavy impact', a sense well established by the medieval period. The same idea produced the 'battering ram', a beam used to smash through walls and gates, and the verb is now used for everything from crashing a car into a barrier to cramming too much into a schedule. The spelling has stayed short and simple for over a thousand years, which is why the word is so easy to write.

How the word is built

• ram (a single Old English root word; not built from prefix or suffix)