/cram/synonyms

/cram/

-) Verb.

-) Pronunciation: kræm.

-) Etymology: from Old English crammian, with the original meaning of “to press close together”.

-) Third-person singular simple present: crams.

-) Preterite tense, preterite participle: crammed.

-) Present participle: cramming.

-) Transitively: 1. To fill (a receptacle) with something that is forced, compressed or improperly put.

-) Synonym for “cram”: stuff.

-) Translation: henchir, in Spanish; remplir, in French; stipare, in Italian.

Although the charge for admission was a hundred dollars, the hall where she appeared was always crammed to the doors.

Wyndham… Montez… 1935

-) With the preposition “with” + a noun (what is forced, compressed or improperly put):

His pockets, they say, are continually crammed with keys.

Richardson… Clarissa… 1748

[…] the king of Bengal, with a powerful fleet and army, invaded the Maldives, conquered and killed their king, ransacked and plundered the islands, and, having crammed his ships with an immense booty, sailed back to Bengal.

Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, 1852

His place of work is anything but large, and movement is rendered somewhat inconvenient, moreover, by a number of heavy presses, crammed to repletion with the costumes of the establishment.

Sala… Gaslight and Daylight… 1859

My pockets are crammed with spectacles.

Trollope… The Last Chronicle… 1879

-) Hyperbolically: to feed (an animal) excessively; to overfeed.

[…] they tried the experiment of cramming [… the birds] with ground corn, and found that it succeeded admirably. The pintadas, […] became as fat as ducks.

Mavor… Voyages and travels… 1797

The curious group of birds called the chatterers, are famous for their enormous appetites, as one species is said to have gorged itself with apples […]; and another (the European waxwing) was found to have crammed itself with […] berries till it could scarcely fly.

Jane Loudon… Facts… 1848

A pig once made its way into the courtyard of a lordly mansion, sauntered at its will around the stables and the kitchen, wallowed in filth, crammed itself full of pigwash.

Good Words… 1868

-) 2. To force, compress or put improperly (anything) into a space or receptacle.

-) Synonyms: to force, crowd, stuff.

-) Translation: meter impropiamente, in Spanish; entasser, in French; stipare, in Italian.

His hat was crammed down now.

Galsworthy… Beyond… 1917

He got out his pipe, filled it and crammed down the tobacco, found a match and leaned back, smoking with relish, one leg thrown over the wheel.

B. Bower… Casey Ryan… 1921

-) With the preposition “into” + noun of the space or of the receptacle:

A single house here, and not a large one, frequently receives a hundred and twenty people to sleep in a night: five or six beds are crammed into each room, and five or six people into each bed.

Richard Ayton… A voyage round Great Britain… 1815

I took the papers, and crammed them into my valise.

Chambers's Edinburgh Journal… 1852

I suffered from thirst… we had nothing to drink. I crammed the clean snow into my mouth; but the process of melting was slow and tantalizing to a parched throat…

John Tyndall… The Glaciers … 1860

… at different times on searching the corners of the house, they found various parcels of bank notes. Some were crammed into the crevices of the wall.

Dickens… Our Mutual Friend… 1864

Meal, butter, cheese, beef, and bacon, were crammed indiscriminately into sacks, with articles of wearing apparel, and the blankets, and the webs of cloth and linen which the thrifty housewife had prepared for her household.

Thomas Lauder… Tales of the Highlands 1841

The smoking room was a temporary erection on the main deck […]. It might have accommodated five and twenty comfortably; but when it was wet and stormy, I have seen double that number crammed into it.

Mackay… The Western World… 1849

The paper he crammed into the pocket of his light yellow dust-coat.

Doyle… Beyond the City… 1900

Malloring read this letter twice, and the enclosure three times, and crammed them deep down into his pocket.

Galsworthy… The Freelands… 1915

-) Reflexively:

There we waited in a little auberge till a cabriolet from the post was sent, and into this we all four crammed ourselves.

Berry… Extracts of the journals… 1865

The Count du Luc caused a French comedy to be performed in theatre of Baden, to which admission was [… gratuitous] to all who chose to attend it; and, naturally, the house was crowded. […] Of course there were reserved seats for the smart ladies and gentlemen, whilst the profane vulgar scrambled and crammed itself into every vacant corner that could be found.

The Cornhill Magazine… 1877

[…] Mrs. Midge had sought refuge under the sofa, and every bird had crammed itself into what corner it could.

The Strand Magazine… 1900

-) 3. Metaphorical: to make (a person) learn improperly many things, as if by filling her/him with them.

[Boys] are crammed with mere facts, and with the opinions or phrases of other people, and these are accepted as a substitute for the power to [… construe] opinions of their own.

Stuart… Autobiography… 1874

Mary read, and read, and read, till she felt she was made up of the contents of books, crammed with other people's ideas.

Braddon… Phantom Fortune… 1883

It's very difficult to teach boys, because their chief object in life is not to be taught anything, but I should say we were crammed, not taught at all.

Galsworthy… Another Sheaf… 1919

-) Particularly: a. To make (a person) believe lies or crams. b. To make (a person) learn much about a subject, as in preparation for an examination, briefly and without a purpose of making understand. c. To learn (a subject) by hasty preparation and without a purpose of understanding.

[…] fathers and mothers bring their little boys, and take it as a matter of course, that they'll have all manner of Greek, and Latin, and mathematics, and geography crammed into them.

Douglas Jerrold… The writings… 1844

-) Intransitively: to become a crammer; to cram a subject; to learn a subject by hasty preparation and without a purpose of understanding.

Have you ever crammed for an exam, [… been successful in it], and then 2 weeks later could not remember what you studied?

David Wright… Get a job!

-) English words derived from CRAM: crammer, cram (noun), cramming.