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.
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.
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
Word Origin for cam
C18: from Dutch kam comb
Cam
noun
a river in E England, in Cambridgeshire, flowing through Cambridge to the River Ouse. Length: about 64 km (40 miles)
CAM
abbreviation for
complementary and alternative medicine
computer-aided manufacture
botanycrassulacean acid metabolism: a form of photosynthesis, first described in crassulaceous plants, in which carbon dioxide is taken up only at night
"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.
