a combining form occurring in loanwords from Greek, where it meant “something written,” “drawing” (epigram; diagram); on this model, used in the formation of compound words (oscillogram).
a combining form extracted from telegram, used in the formation of compound words that have the general sense “message, bulletin”: culturegram; electiongram; prophecy-gram.
a metric unit of mass equal to one thousandth of a kilogram. It is equivalent to 15.432 grains or 0.002 205 poundsSymbol: g
Word Origin for gram
C18: from French gramme, from Late Latin gramma, from Greek: small weight, from graphein to write
gram
2
noun
any of several leguminous plants, such as the beans Phaseolus mungo (black gram or urd) and P. aureus (green gram), whose seeds are used as food in India
the seed of any of these plants
Word Origin for gram
C18: from Portuguese gram (modern spelling grão), from Latin grānumgrain
gram
3
noun
(in India) a village
Word Origin for gram
Hindi
gram.
abbreviation for
grammar
grammatical
-gram
n combining form
indicating a drawing or something written or recordedhexagram; telegram
Word Origin for -gram
from Latin -gramma, from Greek, from gramma letter and grammē line
metric unit of weight," 1797, from French gramme (18c.), from Late Latin gramma "small weight," from Greek gramma "small weight," originally "letter of the alphabet," from stem of graphein "to draw, write" (see -graphy). Adopted into English about two years before it was established in France as a unit in the metric system by law of 19 frimaire, year VIII (1799).
-gram
suffix from telegram (1852), first abstracted 1979 (in Gorillagram, a proprietary name in U.S.), and put to wide use in forming new words, such as stripagram (1981). The construction violates Greek grammar, as an adverb could not properly form part of a compound noun.
A unit of mass in the metric system, equal to 0.001 kilogram or 0.035 ounce. See Table at measurement.
Gram
[gräm, grăm]Hans Christian Joachim1853-1938
Danish bacteriologist who in 1884 developed a method of staining bacteria, called Gram's stain or Gram's dye, that is used to identify and classify bacteria, often from samples of infected body fluids. The classification, called gram-negative or gram-positive, can be useful in the initial selection of antibiotics to treat the infection.
