jam

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   crush or bruise

   jam a toe

2. 2
   verb

   crowd or pack to capacity

   the theater was jampacked

3. 3
   verb

   get stuck and immobilized

   the mechanism jammed

4. 4
   verb

   push down forcibly

   The driver jammed the brake pedal to the floor

5. 5
   verb

   leave a location

   I am going to jam.

6. 6
   verb

   to play a musical instrument, usually with others

   I am going to jam with my friends later.

7. 7
   noun

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

   He is allergic to jam.

8. 8
   noun

   A difficult situation.

   It's a blackmail ring, and the district attorneys get a share of the loot. […] Well, they got him in the same kind of jam, and soaked him to the tune of three hundred and eighty-six thousand.

Etymology

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.