ran·dom-ac·cess memory

(răn′dəm-ăk′sĕs)

RAM.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ram

(ræm)

n., v. rammed, ram•ming. n.

1. a male sheep.

2. (cap.) Aries.

3. any of various devices for crushing, driving, or forcing something, as a battering ram.

4. (formerly) a heavy beak or spur projecting from the bow of a warship for penetrating the hull of an enemy's ship.

5. a warship so equipped.

v.t.

6. to drive or force by heavy blows.

7. to dash violently against.

8. to cram; stuff.

9. to push firmly; force: to ram a bill through the Senate.

10. to force (a charge) into a firearm, as with a ramrod.

[before 900; Middle English: male sheep, machine for ramming, Old English ram(m)]

RAM

(ræm)

n.

volatile computer memory, used for creating, loading, and running programs and for manipulating and temporarily storing data; main memory. Compare ROM.

[1955–60; r(andom)-a(ccess) m(emory)]

ran·dom-ac·cess memory

(răn′dəm-ăk′sĕs)

See RAM.

The American Heritage® Student Science Dictionary, Second Edition. Copyright © 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

random-access memory - the most common computer memory which can be used by programs to perform necessary tasks while the computer is on; an integrated circuit memory chip allows information to be stored or accessed in any order and all storage locations are equally accessible

RAM, random access memory, random memory, read/write memory

buffer storage, buffer store, buffer - (computer science) a part of RAM used for temporary storage of data that is waiting to be sent to a device; used to compensate for differences in the rate of flow of data between components of a computer system

magnetic core, core - (computer science) a tiny ferrite toroid formerly used in a random access memory to store one bit of data; now superseded by semiconductor memories; "each core has three wires passing through it, providing the means to select and detect the contents of each bit"

core memory, magnetic core memory - (computer science) a computer memory consisting of an array of magnetic cores; now superseded by semiconductor memories

RAM disk - (computer science) a virtual drive that is created by setting aside part of the random-access memory to use as if it were a group of sectors; "access to a RAM disk is very fast but the data it contains is lost when the system is turned off"

volatile storage - computer storage that is erased when the power is turned off

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References in periodicals archive

The maker of dynamic random-access memory chips is struggling to keep up with rivals such as Samsung Electronics Co.

Hynix reports $873 million loss for first quarter

Such direct access to every element is also a feature of electronic random-access memory chips, the researchers note.

Tiny plumbing networks concoct and compute. (Liquid logic)

It has been applied productively in studies of magnetic disk storage systems, magnetic sensors, and most recently, to nanoscale magnetic random-access memory devices.

Leading NIST publication cited. (General Developments)