scram

See also: SCRAM

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: skrăm, IPA^(key): /skɹæm/
• Rhymes: -æm

Etymology 1

Attested since 1928, originally as U.S. slang; either:

• formed by abbreviation of scramble by apocope; or
• from dialect (deprecated template usage) [etyl] German schramm, imperative singular form of schrammen (“graze”).

Verb

1. (often imperative) Leave in a hurry, go away.

   What are you kids doing on my lawn? Scram!

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:go away

Translations

go away

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 滾／滚 (zh) (gǔn) 滚 (zh) (gǔn)

• Dutch: wegwezen (nl)
• Finnish: häipyä (fi), ottaa hatkat
• French: dégager (fr), décamper (fr), ficher le camp (fr), décaniller (fr), se tirer (fr), se barrer (fr), se tailler (fr), se casser (fr)
• German: abhauen (de), weggehen (de), verduften (de), abzischen (de), sich davonmachen, Reißaus nehmen, Land gewinnen (de), verschwinden (de)
• Italian: andare via (it), smammare (it)
• Maori: hie
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Portuguese: vazar (pt), sumir (pt)
• Romanian: please add this translation if you can
• Russian: вали́ть (ru) impf (valítʹ)
• Spanish: irse (es), retirarse (es), marcharse (es)
• Turkish: tüymek (tr), sıvışmak (tr)

See also

• amscray

Etymology 2

Back-formation from SCRAM; most etymologies are backronyms.

Verb

scram (third-person singular simple present scrams, present participle scraming or scramming, simple past and past participle scramed or scrammed)

1. Alternative form of SCRAM (“shut down nuclear reactor”)
   • 1983, Michio Kaku & Jennifer Trainer (eds.), Nuclear Power: Both Sides, p. 22,

     The slightest problem in a reactor will cause the control rods to plunge automatically in the uranium core at hih speeds (this is called scramming the reactor) and stop the chain reaction.

   • 1999, Charles Perrow, Normal Accidents: Living with High-risk Technologies, p. 44,

     This shut off current to the control rod mechanism, and the reactor scrammed (shut off) automatically.

   • 2000, Ralph R. Fullwood, Probabilistic Safety Assessment in the Chemical and Nuclear Industries, Elsevier, page 218

     Both active and manual methods scram by tripping power to a dedicated pump that unbalances the flows to the ^[sic] passively scram the reactor.

   • 2007, Samuel Upton Newtan, Nuclear War I and Other Major Nuclear Disasters of the 20th Century, p. 113,

     The reactor was then "scramed", but the control rods did not slide back into the reactor.

Noun

scram (countable and uncountable, plural scrams)

1. Alternative form of SCRAM (“shutdown of nuclear reactor”)

Etymology 3

Etymology unknown.

Verb

1. (Wales) Scratch with claws or fingernails.
   • 1996–2014, “A Dictionary of Slang”, archived on 30 August 2013, accessed on 19 March 2014:

     Verb. ... 2. To scratch, with claws or fingernails. E.g. "It's my own fault the cat scrammed me, I was teasing it." [South Wales use]

   • 2013 December 19, Abby Bolter, “Firefighters rescue woman trapped in Bridgend flat following an alleged arson attack”, in WalesOnline‎^[1], archived from the original on 24 December 2013:

     A woman has praised firefighters and her cat for saving her life following an alleged arson attack. Two-and-a-half-year-old tortoiseshell Taffy repeatedly bit owner Tracie Horgan-Hodgkiss on the hand until she woke up when her flat filled with acrid smoke in the early hours of this morning. ... "I’d like to say thank you very much to the firefighters for coming to rescue me. And I am sorry that Taffy scrammed one of them!"

     (Also reported as 2013 December 21, “Cat wakes woman as flat fills with smoke”", The Daily Telegraph, p. 17.)

Noun

scram (plural scrams)

1. (Wales) A scratch, especially caused by claws or fingernails.
   • 1996–2014, “A Dictionary of Slang”, archived on 30 August 2013, accessed on 19 March 2014:

     Noun. ... 2. A scratch. [South Wales use]

Anagrams

• Crams, MRCAs, crams, marcs, mrcas