tram /tɹam/noun 9verb 5forms 3 noun9 •(UK, Australia) A passenger vehicle for public use that runs on tracks in the road (called a streetcar or trolley in North America).Lizzie and she got a dozen of large bottles and the loan of a basket and we got a currant pan and a half-pound of cooked ham in the shop next door and got on the tram for Whitehall. — 1981 •A similar vehicle for carrying materials.Trams are a kind of sledge on which coals are brought from the place where they are hewn to the shaft. A tram has four wheels but a sledge is without wheels. — 1789 •(UK, historical) A car on a horse railway or tramway (horse trams preceded electric trams). •(US) A people mover.The game Half-Life, for example, begins with a movie in which Gordon Freeman, the player's avatar, takes a tram ride through the Black Mesa research complex while a voice explains why he is there. — 2013 •(US) A train with wheels that runs on a road; a trackless train.Each morning, still-groggy early-bird park-goers stumble from the parking-lot tram and head straight to La Brea's cafeteria-style Express for a caffeinated pick-me-up or a meal to start the day. — 2007 •(US) An aerial cable car. •A silk thread formed of two or more threads twisted together, used especially for the weft, or cross threads, of the best quality of velvets and silk goods.Analysis of the seventeenth-century damask revealed that both its warp and weft were silk filaments; the organzine warp was dyed a dark blue and the tram silk of the weft was a somewhat lighter blue. — 2011 •(no longer used) The shaft of a cart. •(no longer used) One of the rails of a tramway. verb5 •To travel by tram. •To transport (material) by tram. •(US) To align a component in mechanical engineering or metalworking, particularly the spindle of a mill or drill press, as historically accomplished using a trammel. •To operate, or conduct the business of, a tramway. •To weave in this manner. formstrammed · tramming · trams
