German

Noun

Tram f, n ‎(genitive Tram or Trams, plural Trams)

1. Abbreviation of Trambahn.

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /tɹam/
• (General American) enPR: trăm, IPA^(key): /tɹæm/
• Rhymes: -æm

Noun

tram ‎(plural trams)

1. (Australia, Britain, rail transport) A passenger vehicle for public use that runs on tracks in the road (called a streetcar in North America).
2. A similar vehicle for carrying materials.
   • 1789, John Brand, History and Antiquities of the Town and County of Newcastle upon Tyne: Including an Account of the Coal Trade of that Place, volume II, London: White, OCLC 630368783, page 681:

     Trams are a kind of sledge on which coals are brought from the place where they are hewn to the shaft. A tram has four wheels but a sledge is without wheels.

3. (US, rail transport) A people mover.
   • 2013, Ernest Adams, “Storytelling”, in Fundamentals of Game Design, 3rd edition, [San Francisco, Calif.]: New Riders, ISBN 978-0-321-92967-9, page 215:

     The game Half-Life, for example, begins with a movie in which Gordon Freeman, the player's avatar, takes a tram ride through the Black Mesa research complex while a voice explains why he is there.

4. (US) An aerial cable car.
   • 2014, Vivienne Gucwa, “Skylines”, in NY through the Lens, Cincinnati, Oh.: Print Books, ISBN 978-1-4403-3958-5, page 129:

     It's possible that my family took the tram to Roosevelt Island at some point and the experience embedded itself deep into my imagination where it mixed with other flights of fancy (pun intended) of flying through a Gotham-like city like Batman.

5. (US) A train with wheels that runs on a road; a trackless train.
   • 2005, Jan Friedman, Eccentric California, Chalfont St. Peter, Buckinghamshire: Bradt Travel Guides, ISBN 978-1-84162-126-5, page 124:

     Taking advantage of the VIP Experience at Universal Studios provides a more intimate and authentic look at the studio than does the regular studio tram tour. […] The VIP Experience gets you off the tram and behind the scenes: into sound stages, prop warehouses, and production facilities and on the sets of shows in production.

   • 2007, Matthew Richard Poole, Frommer's Los Angeles 2008, Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 978-0-470-14575-3, page 236:

     Each morning, still-groggy early-bird park-goers stumble from the parking-lot tram and head straight to La Brea's cafeteria-style Express for a caffeinated pick-me-up or a meal to start the day.

6. (obsolete) The shaft of a cart.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of De Quincey to this entry?)

7. (obsolete) One of the rails of a tramway.
8. (Britain, obsolete) A car on a horse railroad or tramway (horse trams preceded electric trams).

Synonyms

• (passenger vehicle): streetcar

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• cablecar
• light rail
• streetcar
• trolley car

Verb

tram ‎(third-person singular simple present trams, present participle tramming, simple past and past participle trammed)

1. (intransitive) To operate, or conduct the business of, a tramway.
2. (intransitive) To travel by tram.
3. (transitive) To transport (material) by tram.
4. (US, transitive) To align a component in mechanical engineering or metalworking, particularly the head of a drill press.

References

1. ↑ Ivor Henry Evans (1971) Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, centenary edition, London: Cassell, ISBN 978-0-304-93570-3.
2. ↑ Anatoly Liberman (5 August 2009), “A Derailed Myth, or, a Story of the Word Tram”, in The Oxford Etymologist, OUPblog, Oxford University Press, archived from the original on 4 March 2016.

External links

• tram on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• tram (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Etymology 2

From Spanish trama, or French trame ‎(“weft”).

Noun

tram ‎(plural trams)

1. (weaving) 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.

Anagrams

• mart, RATM

Catalan

Etymology

From Latin trama.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tɾam/

Noun

tram m ‎(plural trams)

1. segment (of road etc.)

Dutch

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɑm
• (Netherlands) IPA^(key): /trɛm/
• (Belgium) IPA^(key): /trɑm/, /trɛm/

Etymology

From English tram.

Noun

tram m ‎(plural trams or trammen, diminutive trammetje n)

1. A tram, vehicle on rails for passenger transport in cities.

Anagrams

• ramt

French

Etymology

Shortened from tramway.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tʁam/

Noun

tram m ‎(plural trams)

1. tram (UK), streetcar (US)

Italian

Noun

tram m ‎(invariable)

1. tram, streetcar

Norman

Etymology

Borrowing from English tram.

Noun

tram m ‎(plural trams)

1. (Jersey) tram