Cam definition

kăm
cams
See word origin
Frequency:
Computer-aided manufacturing.
abbreviation
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(place) River in EC England, flowing through Cambridge: 40 mi (64 km)
proper name
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Cambodia.
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Cameroon.
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(geo, place, proper) Central America.
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Computer-aided manufacturing.
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(1) (Computer-Aided Manufacturing) The automation of manufacturing systems and techniques, including numerical control, process control, robotics and materials requirements planning (MRP). See CAD and CAD/CAM.
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A turning or sliding piece which imparts motion to a rod, lever or block brought into sliding or rolling contact with it.
noun
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A curved wedge, movable about an axis, used for forcing or clamping two pieces together.
noun
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(UK, dialect) A ridge or mound of earth.

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(rock climbing) A camming device, a spring-loaded device for effecting a temporary belay in a rock crevice.
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(informal) Camera.
noun
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To go on webcam with someone.
verb
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Alternative form of kam.
adverb
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A wheel that has a projecting part and is mounted on a rotating shaft to produce variable or reciprocating motion in another part.
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Complementary and alternative medicine.
abbreviation
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A moving piece of machinery, as a wheel or projection on a wheel, that gives an eccentric rotation or a reciprocating motion to another wheel, a roller, a shaft, etc., or that receives such motion from it.
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Weather cam.

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Other Word Forms

Noun

Singular:
cam
Plural:
cams

Origin of cam

  • Dutch kam cog, comb gembh- in Indo-European roots

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

  • Recorded since the 16th century, from Dutch kam (“cog of a wheel; originally, comb”) (cognate with English comb, and preserved in modern Dutch compounds such as kamrad, kamwiel (“cog wheel”))

    From Wiktionary

  • From camera, from the first part of Latin camera obscura (“dark chamber”), itself from Ancient Greek καμάρα (kamara, “vaulted chamber”), from Proto-Indo-European *kam- (“to arch”)

    From Wiktionary