jam
Plural: jams
Noun
- preserve of crushed fruit
- informal terms for a difficult situation
- a dense crowd of people
- deliberate radiation or reflection of electromagnetic energy for the purpose of disrupting enemy use of electronic devices or systems
- A sweet mixture of fruit boiled with sugar and allowed to congeal. Often spread on bread or toast or used in jam tarts
- A difficult situation.
- A difficult situation.
- A difficult situation for a pitcher or defending team.
- A blockage, congestion, or immobilization.
- An informal, impromptu performance or rehearsal.
- A song; a track.
- An informal event where people brainstorm and collaborate on projects.
- That which one particularly prefers, desires, enjoys, or cares about.
- A forceful dunk.
- A play during which points can be scored.
- Any of several manoeuvres requiring wedging of an extremity into a tight space.
- The tree Acacia acuminata, with fruity-smelling hard timber.
- Luck hence jammy - lucky.
- balls, bollocks, courage, machismo
- Sexual relations or the contemplation of them.
- Something enjoyable; a delightful situation or outcome.
- A kind of frock for children.
- Alternative form of jamb.
Verb
Verb Forms: jammed, jamming, jams
- To force or squeeze something tightly into a space.
- press tightly together or cram
- push down forcibly
- "The driver jammed the brake pedal to the floor"
- crush or bruise
- "jam a toe"
- interfere with or prevent the reception of signals
- "Jam the Voice of America"
- get stuck and immobilized
- "the mechanism jammed"
- crowd or pack to capacity
- "the theater was jampacked"
- block passage through
- To get something stuck, often (though not necessarily) in a confined space.
- To brusquely force something into a space; to cram, to squeeze.
- To render something unable to move.
- To cause congestion or blockage. Often used with "up".
- To block or confuse a radio or radar signal by transmitting a more-powerful signal on the same frequency.
- To throw a pitch at or near the batter's hands.
- To dunk.
- To play music (especially improvisation as a group, or an informal unrehearsed session).
- To injure a finger or toe by sudden compression of the digit's tip.
- To attempt to score points.
- To bring (a vessel) so close to the wind that half her upper sails are laid aback.
- To give up on a date or some other joint endeavour; to stand up, chicken out, jam out.
- To be of high quality.
Examples
- a jam of logs in a river
- a jam on the 101 South, blocking the two right lanes [radio report]
- A single accident can jam the roads for hours.
- He is allergic to jam.
- He tried to JAM too many letters onto the double-letter score, resulting in a challenge.
- He's got more jam than Waitrose.
- Her poor little baby toe got jammed in the door.
- I don't think he has the jam.
- I jammed the top knuckle of my ring finger.
- I love this song! This song jams!
- I used a whole series of fist and foot jams in that crack.
- Jones was jammed by the pitch.
- My foot got jammed in a gap between the rocks.
- She loves eating jam for breakfast in hotels.
- Teaching is my jam.
- The airstrike suffered minimal casualties because electronic-warfare aircraft were jamming the enemy air-defense radars.
- The government jams foreign propaganda broadcasts.
- The pitcher's in a jam now, having walked the bases loaded with the cleanup hitter coming to bat.
- The rush-hour train was jammed with commuters.
- They temporarily stopped the gas tank leak by jamming a piece of taffy into the hole.
- Toughie jammed four times in the second period.
- Toughie scored four points in that jam.
- We came up with some new ideas at the game jam.
- When he tripped on the step he jammed his toe.
Origin / Etymology
First attested in the early 18th c. as a verb meaning “to press, be pressed, be wedged in”. Compare dialectal jammock (“to press, squeeze, crush into a soft mass, chew food"; also "a soft, pulpy substance”). Perhaps from Middle English chammen, champen ("to bite upon something, gnash the teeth"; whence modern champ, chomp), of uncertain origin; probably originally onomatopoeic.
The "performance" sense is first attested with regards to jazz in 1929, and its origin, though uncertain, is likely metaphorical, "something sweet made by the combination of many things", with influence from jamboree.
Synonyms
block, chock up, close up, cram, crush, electronic jamming, fix, hole, impede, jamming, jampack, kettle of fish, mess, mob, muddle, obstruct, obturate, occlude, pack, pickle, pile, press, ram, throng, wad, ass in a sling, bind, bucket of syrup, calvary, conserve, cross, cross to bear, difficulty, dilemma, dire straits, doghouse, jam, jam-up, jelly, ordeal, pinch, plight, predicament, preserve, quagmire, quandary, raspberry jam tree, situation, spot, spot of bother, sticky situation, sticky wicket, stinking acacia, tight spot, trouble
Antonyms
Scrabble Score: 12
jam: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordjam: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
jam: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary