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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

cam.

A turning or sliding piece which imparts motion to a rod, lever or block brought into sliding or rolling contact with it.

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈkæm/[ˈkʰæm]/ˈkeə̯m/Canada, US[ˈkʰeə̯m]Canada, US
  1. A turning or sliding piece which imparts motion to a rod, lever or block brought into sliding or rolling contact with it.

  2. A turning or sliding piece which imparts motion to a rod, lever or block brought into sliding or rolling contact with it. A curved wedge, movable about an axis, used for forcing or clamping two pieces together.

  3. A ridge or mound of earth.

    UK · dialectal
  4. A spring-loaded camming device, a spring-loaded device for effecting a temporary belay in a rock crevice.

Where this word comes from

PIE word *ǵómbʰos Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ǵembʰ- Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *ǵómbʰos Proto-Germanic *kambaz Proto-West Germanic ᚲᚨᛒᚨ Proto-West Germanic *kamb Old Dutch *kamb Middle Dutch kamp Dutch kamder. English cam 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”)). Doublet of comb.

noun/ˈkæm/[ˈkʰæm]/ˈkeə̯m/Canada, US[ˈkʰeə̯m]Canada, US
  1. Camera.

    informal
  2. A bootleg recording of a film recorded in a movie theater.

Where this word comes from

Clipping of camera.

verb/ˈkæm/[ˈkʰæm]/ˈkeə̯m/Canada, US[ˈkʰeə̯m]Canada, US
  1. To go on webcam.

Where this word comes from

Clipping of camera.

adv/ˈkæm/[ˈkʰæm]/ˈkeə̯m/Canada, US[ˈkʰeə̯m]Canada, US
  1. Alternative form of kam.

    alt-of · alternative
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.