SCRAM
What does "SCRAM" mean?
To leave a place quickly, often as a sharp command to go away.
Meanings
- To depart at once, usually said as an order. The shopkeeper told the loitering kids to scram. informal
- An emergency shutdown of a nuclear reactor. Operators initiated a scram the moment the alarm sounded. technical
- To shut down a nuclear reactor rapidly in an emergency. The reactor scrammed automatically when the sensors tripped. technical
Did you know?
- In nuclear engineering 'scram' means an emergency reactor shutdown, a usage born at the world's first reactor, Chicago Pile-1, which Enrico Fermi's team brought to criticality in December 1942.
Word origin
The 'go away' sense is 1920s American slang, probably a clipped form of 'scramble'; the nuclear sense dates from the 1940s Manhattan Project, where a SCRAM rapidly inserted control rods to halt the chain reaction.
Remember it
SCRAM is SCRAMble with the -ble knocked off - leave so fast you drop the ending.
A little poem
One word from the doorway, one word and you're gone-
'scram' is the shortest goodbye ever drawn.
couplet
Wordplay
- The physicist yelled 'scram' at the loud neighbors. They left - and so, oddly, did the reactor.
What it teaches
Some words shrink a whole sentence to one syllable; urgency has no time for politeness.
Quick facts
What does SCRAM mean?
To leave a place quickly, often as a sharp command to go away.
Is SCRAM a valid word?
Yes — SCRAM is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is SCRAM?
SCRAM has 5 letters and 1 syllable.
Where does SCRAM come from?
The 'go away' sense is 1920s American slang, probably a clipped form of 'scramble'; the nuclear sense dates from the 1940s Manhattan Project, where a SCRAM rapidly inserted control rods to halt the chain reaction.
What can SCRAM teach us?
Some words shrink a whole sentence to one syllable; urgency has no time for politeness.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.