rammer
(ˈræmə(r))
Also 6 -ar, -or.
[f. ram v.1]
1. An instrument for ramming or beating down earth, or forcing stones into the ground, consisting of a heavy piece of wood held upright, the blow being given with the lower end.
| 1497 Naval Acc. Hen. VII (1896) 89 Paving rammers of tymbre. 1530 Palsgr. 260/2 Rammer for husbandrie. 1600 Surflet Countrie Farme ii. liv. 372 You may beate it [the earth] downe with a rammer of wood. 1641 Best Farm. Bks. (Surtees) 107 The rest have rammers for ramminge and beatinge of the earth downe into the hole. 1766 Museum Rust. VI. 318 One person may be employed with a rammer, to follow five or six mowers. 1876 Voyle & Stevenson Milit. Dict. 325/2 Compressing, by means of rammers, the loose earth used in building parapets. |
b. A similar implement used for other purposes; a pestle or stamp.
| 1643 Horn & Rob. Gate Lang. Unl. xxxiii. §402 They stamped it [barley] with a rough rammer in a bake house. 1755 Gentl. Mag. XXV. 361 Ramming them [ashes]..with a small light rammer, as tight as you can, without bursting the vatt. 1837 Whittock Bk. Trades (1842) 254 (Fuller) Very heavy pointed ‘rammers’ fall upon the cloth. 1852 C. Morfit Tanning & Currying (1853) 499 The skins..are beaten out with the mace, or rammer. 1879 Cassell's Techn. Educ. IV. 338/1 When full to the brim the salt is worked about with a short thick stick, the ‘rammer’. |
c. Applied in contempt to a heavy, clumsy shoe.
| 1810 Splendid Follies I. 127 If you had but a pair of pink slippers on instead of those confounded rammers. |
2. A cylindrical block of wood fixed at the end of a staff, used to drive home the charge of a cannon; † the ramrod of a fire-arm.
| 1497 Naval Acc. Hen. VII (1896) 125 Rammers for gonnes. 1581 Styward Mart. Discipl. i. 44 A good and sufficient peece, flaske,..mould, rammor. 1627 Capt. Smith Seaman's Gram. xiv. 66 A Rammer is a bob of wood at the other end [of the sponge] to ramme home the Powder and the Waddings. 1669 Sturmy Mariner's Mag. v. 68 Then with the Rammer put the Powder home gently. 1778 Hutton in Phil. Trans. LXVIII. 68 The powder was forced up with only one stroke of the rammer. 1833 Marryat P. Simple (1863) 247 As the men withdrew the rammer, a shot from the enemy entered the muzzle. 1879 Man. Artillery Exerc. 8 Overbank carriages, jointed rammers, &c., for our siege guns. |
b. A ramming instrument used in chemical experiments, or in blasting operatons.
| 1660 Boyle New Exp. Phys. Mech. xxiii. 185 The lower end of the Glass rammer (if we may so call it). 1709 Phil. Trans. XXVI. 262, I ramm'd them strongly down with a Rammer, whose Basis was very little less than the Bore of the Tube. 1799 G. Smith Laboratory I. 6 The rammer one diameter shorter than the mould. 1868 Fairley Gloss. Terms Coal-Mining ii, Rammer, an iron instrument used in filling a hole..previous to firing the powder. |
† 3. A battering-ram. Obs. rare.
| 1546 Langley Pol. Virg. De Invent. ii. vii. 47 b, The rammer called in Latin Aries wherwith walles be ouer⁓throwen was made by Epeus at Troye. |
4. A pile-driver, or similar device.
| 1688 R. Holme Armoury iii. 480/2 A Rammer, or an Instrument to Drive Piles into the Ground. 1775 N. D. Falck Day's Diving Vess. 27 The next implement was a rammer, with which the blocks were to be driven into the object. [Description follows.] 1853 J. Nicholson Operat. Mechanic (ed. 4) 313 The rammer made use of to drive piles. |
5. One engaged in ramming earth.
| 1876 Voyle & Stevenson Milit. Dict. 326/1. |
6. attrib. and Comb., as (sense 1) rammer-beaten adj., (sense 2) rammer-head, rammer rod.
| 1549 Privy Council Acts II. 349/1 Rammers and ramer⁓hedes, xvj dousen. 1692 Capt. Smith's Seaman's Gram. ii. xi. 106 Make a mark upon the Rammer-head. 1774 Cook in Phil. Trans. LXIV. 411 The shock forced the musket out of his hand, and broke the rammer rod. 1834 Landor Exam. Shaks. Wks. 1846 II. 276 The groundwork and religious duty not being well rammer-beaten and flinted. 1876 Voyle & Stevenson Milit. Dict. 325/2 Rammer-heads for..siege guns are not attached to the sponge staves. |