cam

noun

1. Machinery. a disk or cylinder having an irregular form such that its motion, usually rotary, gives to a part or parts in contact with it a specific rocking or reciprocating motion.
2. Automotive Slang. camshaft.

verb (used with object), cammed, cam·ming.

3. to provide (a machine part or mechanism) with a cam or cams.

noun

1. a camera, especially one that records video (often used in combination, as indigital cam; traffic cam; webcam):She’s a professional photographer who uses state-of-the-art cams.

noun

1. a river in E England flowing NE by Cambridge, into the Ouse River. 40 miles (64 km) long.

noun

1. computer-aided manufacturing.

1. Cambridge.

noun

1. a slider or roller attached to a rotating shaft to give a particular type of reciprocating motion to a part in contact with its profile

noun

1. a river in E England, in Cambridgeshire, flowing through Cambridge to the River Ouse. Length: about 64 km (40 miles)

abbreviation for

1. complementary and alternative medicine
2. computer-aided manufacture
3. botany crassulacean acid metabolism: a form of photosynthesis, first described in crassulaceous plants, in which carbon dioxide is taken up only at night
4. Cameroon (international car registration)

n.1

“a projecting part of a rotating machinery,” 1777, from Dutch cam “cog of a wheel,” originally “comb;” cognate of English comb (n.). This might have combined with English camber “having a slight arch;” or the whole thing could be from camber.

n.2

abbreviation of camera, by 1990.