JAM (jammed, jamming)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

Irregular inflected forms: jammed    , jamming   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does jam mean? 

• JAM (noun)
  The noun JAM has 4 senses:

1. preserve of crushed fruit

2. informal terms for a difficult situation

3. a dense crowd of people

4. deliberate radiation or reflection of electromagnetic energy for the purpose of disrupting enemy use of electronic devices or systems

  Familiarity information: JAM used as a noun is uncommon.

• JAM (verb)
  The verb JAM has 7 senses:

1. press tightly together or cram

2. push down forcibly

3. crush or bruise

4. interfere with or prevent the reception of signals

5. get stuck and immobilized

6. crowd or pack to capacity

7. block passage through

  Familiarity information: JAM used as a verb is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• JAM (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Preserve of crushed fruit

Classified under:

Nouns denoting foods and drinks

Hypernyms ("jam" is a kind of...):

conserve; conserves; preserve; preserves (fruit preserved by cooking with sugar)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "jam"):

strawberry jam; strawberry preserves (made with strawberries)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Informal terms for a difficult situation

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

fix; hole; jam; kettle of fish; mess; muddle; pickle

Context example:

he made a muddle of his marriage

Hypernyms ("jam" is a kind of...):

difficulty (a condition or state of affairs almost beyond one's ability to deal with and requiring great effort to bear or overcome)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "jam"):

dog's breakfast; dog's dinner (a poor job; a mess)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A dense crowd of people

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Synonyms:

crush; jam; press

Hypernyms ("jam" is a kind of...):

crowd (a large number of things or people considered together)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "jam"):

snarl-up; traffic jam (a number of vehicles blocking one another until they can scarcely move)

Derivation:

jam (crowd or pack to capacity)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Deliberate radiation or reflection of electromagnetic energy for the purpose of disrupting enemy use of electronic devices or systems

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

electronic jamming; jam; jamming

Hypernyms ("jam" is a kind of...):

ECM; electronic countermeasures (electronic warfare undertaken to prevent or reduce an enemy's effective use of the electromagnetic spectrum)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "jam"):

selective jamming; spot jamming (electronic jamming of a specific channel or frequency)

barrage jamming (electronic jamming over a wide range of frequencies simultaneously)

Derivation:

jam (interfere with or prevent the reception of signals)

• JAM (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they jam    ... he / she / it jams   
Past simple: jammed   
Past participle: jammed   
-ing form: jamming   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Press tightly together or cram

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Synonyms:

jam; mob; pack; pile; throng

Context example:

The crowd packed the auditorium

Hypernyms (to "jam" is one way to...):

crowd; crowd together (to gather together in large numbers)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s PP

Sense 2

Meaning:

Push down forcibly

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Context example:

The driver jammed the brake pedal to the floor

Hypernyms (to "jam" is one way to...):

force; push (move with force)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Sense 3

Meaning:

Crush or bruise

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

crush; jam

Context example:

jam a toe

Hypernyms (to "jam" is one way to...):

bruise; contuse (injure the underlying soft tissue or bone of)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sentence example:

Did he jam his foot?

Sense 4

Meaning:

Interfere with or prevent the reception of signals

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Synonyms:

block; jam

Context example:

block the signals emitted by this station

Hypernyms (to "jam" is one way to...):

break up; cut off; disrupt; interrupt (make a break in)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "jam"):

barrage jam (jam an entire frequency spectrum)

point jam (jam a narrow band of frequencies)

spot jam (jam a single frequency)

blanket jam (jam a broad spectrum of frequencies to affect all communications in the area except for directional antenna communications)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

jam; jamming (deliberate radiation or reflection of electromagnetic energy for the purpose of disrupting enemy use of electronic devices or systems)

Sense 5

Meaning:

Get stuck and immobilized

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Context example:

the mechanism jammed

Hypernyms (to "jam" is one way to...):

malfunction; misfunction (fail to function or function improperly)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Something is ----ing PP

Sentence example:

They want to jam the doors

Sense 6

Meaning:

Crowd or pack to capacity

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

chock up; cram; jam; jampack; ram; wad

Context example:

the theater was jampacked

Hypernyms (to "jam" is one way to...):

stuff (cram into a cavity)

Verb group:

cram (put something somewhere so that the space is completely filled)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s something PP
Somebody ----s something with something

Sentence example:

They jam the books into the box

Derivation:

jam (a dense crowd of people)

Sense 7

Meaning:

Block passage through

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

block; close up; impede; jam; obstruct; obturate; occlude

Context example:

obstruct the path

Hypernyms (to "jam" is one way to...):

hinder; impede (be a hindrance or obstacle to)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "jam"):

back up; choke; choke off; clog; clog up; congest; foul (become or cause to become obstructed)

bar; barricade; block; block off; block up; blockade; stop (render unsuitable for passage)

earth up; land up (block with earth, as after a landslide)

block out; screen (prevent from entering)

dam; dam up (obstruct with, or as if with, a dam)

tie up (restrain from moving or operating normally)

asphyxiate; choke; stifle; suffocate (impair the respiration of or obstruct the air passage of)

barricade (prevent access to by barricading)

barricade; barricado (block off with barricades)

block off; blockade (obstruct access to)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

 Context examples 

Then came a peasant woman down the street crying: “Good jams, cheap! Good jams, cheap!”

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

The sled was upside down and jammed between a tree-trunk and a huge rock, and they were forced to unharness the dogs in order to straighten out the tangle.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

This pro-inflammatory response in turn interferes with normal metabolism in the liver, specifically jamming up or blocking insulin signaling to the liver cells.

(When Liver Immune Cells Turn Bad, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

“There is no such person here,” she answered, and tried to close the door, but Holmes had jammed it with his foot.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Ere we could make it fast it had me jammed against the mast.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It is a solid-state device with no moving parts to jam, bend or break, and doesn't have to directly touch the heat source, which can cause thermal stress.

(Harvesting Electrical Power from Waste Heat, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

There's bread and butter and jam, at any rate.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

He ran him into a blind channel, in the bed of the creek where a timber jam barred the way.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

In some way, when Harrison was aloft, the sheet jammed in the block through which it runs at the end of the gaff.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The experimental breakfast consisted of the cereal-based bread and a glass of water, while the control group ate a breakfast consisting of sliced white bread (85g), jam (10g) and margarine (2g), and a glass of water.

(Researchers reveal potential of bread that suppresses appetite, University of Granada)