rammer

noun — 2 senses

rammer

noun

/ˈɹæ.mə(ɹ)/

Etymology From ram + -er.

1

A device used to ram; a ramrod.

  • Now use your rammer to pack it tightly into the barrel.
  • A "mooner," fond of staring into shop windows, or watching the labourers pulling up the pavement to inspect the gas-pipes, or listening stolidly to the dull "pech" of the paviour's rammer on the flags.1853, Charles Dickens, Household Words, volume 6, page 387:
2 more examples
  • […] I put my waterproof over the muzzle of one gun, and made a sort of wigwam with two or three rammers that I found, and lay along the tail of another gun […]1894 May, Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published June 1894, →OCLC:
  • The great guns ranged along the deck — each bound fast by its new breechings — with their linstocks and sponges and ladles and rammers, made no idle show of warlike strength.1923, Charles Boardman Hawes, The Dark Frigate, Chapter 6:
2

One who, or that, rams.

  • the Zeppelin Rammer
  • The loader […] placed the cartridge in the muzzle and shoved it in as far as he could. The rammer rammed it home, the gun captain inserting his priming wire to make sure.2014, Benerson Little, The Sea Rover's Practice:
Derived terms
rammerman

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.