jam

CEFRA2

/ˈd͡ʒæm/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    Preserve of crushed fruit.

  2. 02

    noun

    Extra detail

    A difficult situation.

Examples

  • Please hide the blueberry jam where Takako can't see it.

  • There was an enormous traffic jam in downtown Kyoto.

At a glance

Sits at A2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5
Synonyms
5

Also pronounced

  • [ˈd͡ʒeəm] ~ [ˈd͡ʒɛəm]
  • /ˈd͡ʒaːm/

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. A sweet mixture of fruit boiled with sugar and allowed to congeal. Often spread on bread or toast or used in jam tarts

  2. A difficult situation for a pitcher or defending team.

  3. A blockage, congestion, or immobilization.

More examples

In context

  • She loves eating jam for breakfast in hotels.

  • The pitcher's in a jam now, having walked the bases loaded with the cleanup hitter coming to bat.

  • He is allergic to jam.

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

For breakfast, I like to put berry blank on my bread or crackers.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

First attested in the early 18th c. as a verb meaning “to press, be pressed, be wedged in”. Compare dialectal jammock (“to press, squeeze, crush into a soft mass, chew food"; also "a soft, pulpy substance”). Perhaps from Middle English chammen, champen ("to bite upon something, gnash the teeth"; whence modern champ, chomp), of uncertain origin; probably originally onomatopoeic. The "performance" sense is first attested with regards to jazz in 1929, and its origin, though uncertain, is likely metaphorical, "something sweet made by the combination of many things", with influence from jamboree.