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tram

Pronunciation: /tɹæm/

The English word “tram” has 14 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A passenger vehicle for public use that runs on tracks in the road (called a streetcar or trolley in North America).
  2. A similar vehicle for carrying materials.
  3. A people mover.
  4. An aerial cable car.
  5. A train with wheels that runs on a road; a trackless train.
  6. A car on a horse railway or tramway (horse trams preceded electric trams).
  7. The shaft of a cart.
  8. One of the rails of a tramway.
  9. A silk thread formed of two or more threads twisted together, used especially for the weft, or cross threads, of the best quality of velvets and silk goods.

verb

  1. To operate, or conduct the business of, a tramway.
  2. To travel by tram.
  3. To transport (material) by tram.
  4. To align a component in mechanical engineering or metalworking, particularly the spindle of a mill or drill press, as historically accomplished using a trammel.
  5. To weave in this manner.

Etymology

Early 16th century, borrowed from Scots, probably from Low German traam (“tram, shaft of a barrow”), from Middle Low German and Middle Dutch trame (“narrow shaft, beam”), said to be ultimately from a lost West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) word, probably from Proto-Germanic *drum (“splinter, fragment”), from Proto-Indo-European *térmn̥ (“peg, post, boundary”), cognate with Latin terminus. Compare Middle…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.