Other forms: rams, rammed, ramming
A ram is a male sheep — heavier than the ewes, thick in the neck, with horns that curl round in a spiral beside its head. Picture one standing very still at the top of a field, looking straight back at you.
The animal's habit of charging head first gave English the verb: to ram is to drive something into something else with force. A car rams the barrier, a ship rams another ship, you ram one more shirt into a suitcase that is already full. Machines took the word as well — a battering ram broke down castle gates, and a hydraulic ram is the piston that pushes. It turns up in argument too: ram home a point, ram an opinion down someone's throat. Mind the capital letters, though, because RAM in a computer is an abbreviation and has nothing to do with sheep.
1nounramA male sheep.
“The ram was kept in a separate field from the ewes.”
2verbcrashTo crash into something deliberately and hard.
“The van rammed the gate and knocked it flat.”
3verbspaceTo push something into a space with force.
“He rammed the last of the clothes into the bag.”
4nounheavyA heavy machine part or weapon that strikes or pushes with force.
“They broke the door open with a battering ram.”
ram is a male farm animal.
Ram is old and short: Middle English ram, Old English ramm, Proto-Germanic *rammaz. That form may come from a word meaning 'strong', which suits an animal known for what it can do with its head. The Scandinavian relatives kept the strength and dropped the sheep — Icelandic rammur still means sturdy.
Proto-Germanic
*rammaz — ram
Old English
ramm — ram
Middle English
ram
English, today
ram
Built from
From Middle English ram, rom, ramme, from Old English ramm (“ram”), from Proto-Germanic rammaz (“ram”), possibly from rammaz (“strong”). Cognate with stq Rom (“ram”), Dutch ram (“a male sheep”), German Ramm, Ramme (“ram”). Possibly akin also to Danish ram (“sharp; acrid; rank”), Swedish ram (“strong; perfect”), Faroese ramur (“strong; competent”), Icelandic rammur (“strong; sturdy”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA