CAM

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does Cam mean? 

• CAM (noun)
  The noun CAM has 2 senses:

1. a river in east central England that flows past Cambridge to join the Ouse River

2. a rotating disk shaped to convert circular into linear motion

  Familiarity information: CAM used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CAM (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A river in east central England that flows past Cambridge to join the Ouse River

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Synonyms:

Cam; Cam River; River Cam

Instance hypernyms:

river (a large natural stream of water (larger than a creek))

Holonyms ("Cam" is a part of...):

England (a division of the United Kingdom)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A rotating disk shaped to convert circular into linear motion

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("cam" is a kind of...):

rotating mechanism (a mechanism that rotates)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "cam"):

distributor cam (the cam inside the distributor that rotates to contact spark plug terminals in the correct order)

 Context examples 

A draghound will follow aniseed from here to John o’Groat’s, and our friend, Armstrong, would have to drive through the Cam before he would shake Pompey off his trail.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)