The Collaborative International Dictionary
Cram \Cram\ (kr[a^]m), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Crammed (kr[a^]md); p. pr. & vb. n. Cramming.] [AS. crammian to cram; akin to Icel. kremja to squeeze, bruise, Sw. krama to press. Cf. Cramp.]
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To press, force, or drive, particularly in filling, or in thrusting one thing into another; to stuff; to crowd; to fill to superfluity; as, to cram anything into a basket; to cram a room with people.
Their storehouses crammed with grain.
--Shak.He will cram his brass down our throats.
--Swift. -
To fill with food to satiety; to stuff.
Children would be freer from disease if they were not crammed so much as they are by fond mothers.
--Locke.Cram us with praise, and make us As fat as tame things.
--Shak. To put hastily through an extensive course of memorizing or study, as in preparation for an examination; as, a pupil is crammed by his tutor.
Wiktionary
n. The act by which something is crammed, or stuffed full. vb. (present participle of cram English)
WordNet
See cram
v. crowd or pack to capacity; "the theater was jampacked" [syn: jam, jampack, ram, chock up, wad]
put something somewhere so that the space is completely filled; "cram books into the suitcase"
study intensively, as before an exam; "I had to bone up on my Latin verbs before the final exam" [syn: grind away, drum, bone up, swot, get up, mug up, swot up, bone]
prepare (students) hastily for an impending exam
Wikipedia
In education, cramming (also known as mugging or swotting, from swot, akin to " sweat", meaning "to study with determination") is the practice of working intensively to absorb large volumes of informational material in short amounts of time. It is often done by students in preparation for upcoming exams, especially at the last minute. Cramming is often discouraged by educators because the hurried coverage of material tends to result in poor long-term retention of material, a phenomenon often referred to as the spacing effect. When cramming, one attempts to focus only on studies and to forgo unnecessary actions or habits.
Cramming is a form of fraud in which small charges are added to a bill by a third party without the subscriber's consent or disclosure. These may be disguised as a tax or some other common fee, and may be several dollars or even just a few cents. The crammer's intent is that the subscriber will overlook and ultimately pay these small charges.
According to the U.S. National Association of Attorneys General, cramming was the 4th most common consumer complaint of 2007 in the United States.
Usage examples of "cramming".
The biped remained stationery for another long moment and then dropped awkwardly forward, and began scooping up the grasses with its ridiculous forepaws, cramming great wads, roots, earth and all, into its huge maw.
Even days of intensive cramming wasn't enough to fill in the blanks in IT's lexicon and grammar.
Rick's got to go to Pad rugoi, so we 're cramming as much technique in as pos sible.
Killashandra managed to say, one hand cramming as many of the bright green vegetable spheres into her mouth as she could while she scooped up more milsi stalks in the other.
Killashandra said, struggling out of her suit and tiredly cramming it into the cleaner - a service hers at least badly needed.
The air swirled with smoke from the fire, on it riding the evaporated breath and sweat of the two or three hundred people cramming the hall.
M'rak made no such delay in grabbing up a piece of the steaming bread and cramming it into his mouth.
He scraped a huge spoonful out of his bowl, cramming it into his mouth.
The Empire's designers had been cramming in every extra improvement they could think of, right up to the last minute.
Elsing was on her feet cramming her sewing into her box, her mouth set.
Stumbling to the edge, he gazed out to the horizon, cramming his memory with the scene.
Overjoyed at the bargains he struck, Sianadh reached out to take the ghastly victuals they offered him, cramming them into his mouth straight away.
Even after cramming in all the additional life support Wayfarer's Marines and weapons crews would require, that left the designers an enormous cubage—after all, a Caravan massed 7.
They seemed to have insisted in cramming in as heavy an offensive punch as possible, which wasn't an uncommon mistake in the navies of weaker powers.