Ram

Projection fixed to the front end of a fighting vessel and designed to damage enemy ships struck by it. It may have been developed by the Egyptians as early as 1200 BC, but it was most commonly used on Phoenician, Greek, and Roman galleys. It was briefly revived in the mid-19th century, notably in the American Civil War, when rams mounted on armored, steam-driven warships were used effectively against wooden sailing ships. Improvements in naval weaponry and the spread of metal-hulled ships soon made it obsolete again. Seealso battering ram.

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Medieval weapon consisting of a heavy timber with a metal knob or point at the front. Rams were used to beat down the gates or walls of a besieged city or castle. Usually suspended by ropes from the roof of a movable shed, the timber was swung back and forth by its operators so that it banged against the structure under siege. The shed's roof was covered with animal skins to protect the operators inside it from bombardment with stones or fiery materials.

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Ram, ram, or RAM as a non-acronymic word

Animals

• Sheep, an uncastrated male of which is called a ram
• Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela

Military

• Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another
• Naval ram, a weapon affixed to the bow of ironclad battleships in the late 19th century
• Ram tank, a Canadian tank of the Second World War

In music

• RAM (band), a mizik rasin band based in Port-au-Prince, Haiti
• rAm (band), a short-lived rock and roll band from Oregon, USA, active in 2002
• Ram (band), a short-lived progressive rock band based in New York City, United States, active in 1972
• Ram (album), a 1971 UK #1 album by Paul & Linda McCartney

Sports teams

• RAM Racing, a Formula One racing team active between 1976 and 1985
• Derby County Football Club, an English football club known as the Rams
• St. Louis Rams, the National Football League team from St. Louis, Missouri, United States
• Fordham University Rams, the sports teams of Fordham University in New York City, New York, United States
• Colorado State University Rams, the sports teams of Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado, United States
• University of Rhode Island Rams, the sports teams of the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, Rhode Island, United States
• Rockville High School Rams, the sports teams of Rockville High School in Vernon, Connecticut, United States
• Hightstown High School Rams, the sports team of Hightstown High School in Hightstown, New Jersey, United States

People

• Ram is a very common Hindu name for males, as it was the name of their God who happened to be the king of Ayodhya in ancient India, Shri Rama
• Ram (Bible)
• Ramnaresh Sarwan, a West Indian cricket player
• Andy Ram, an Israeli tennis player
• Ram, a fictional character from the science fiction television program The Tribe
• Rama (disambiguation) for other people named Ram (spelled also as Rama)

In hydraulics

• Hydraulic ram, a type of water-powered cyclic pump
• Rams, used as tools to extract victims of a car collision from the vehicle

Others

• Ramjet, a type of jet engine particularly suitable for supersonic speeds
• Dodge Ram, a full-size pickup truck
• Aries (astrology), symbolized as a ram
• Aries (constellation), symbolized as a ram
• Ram (company), a Japanese visual novel studio
• Ram Mounts, a modular range of products to mount, hold and stabilise devices, and the trading name of the company which makes them
• Remote Area Medical Volunteer corp of USA
• Ram (comics) a fictional Japanese superhero published by DC Comics.

RAM as an abbreviation

• Random access memory, computer memory that can be read from and written to in arbitrary sequence
• Random access machine
• .ram, a file extension for the RealAudio file format
• Radar absorbent material, a material designed to prevent detection of a vehicle or structure by radar
• Random access machine, a theoretical computer model
• Rassemblement pour l'action municipale, a municipal political party in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Canada
• Real Action Marker (Paintball Marker), a brand marketed by Umarex and produced by Qian Wei Paintball
• Rectangular approximation method, a method of approximating the integral of a function
• Regiunea Autonomă Maghiară, the Hungarian Autonomous Province of Romania (1952-68)
• Relative atomic mass, the mass of an atom at rest
• Residents Action Movement, a left-wing coalition in the Auckland Region of New Zealand
• RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile, a short-range surface-to-air missile
• Riverside Art Museum in Riverside, California
• Rock Australia Magazine, a musical journal/magazine published in Australia
• Root apical meristem
• Royal Academy of Music, in London, England
• Royal Air Maroc, the national airline of Morocco
• Royal Alberta Museum, in Alberta, Canada
• Royal Arch Masonry, in the York Rite the next order a Freemason can join after becoming a Master Freemason
• Rechargeable Alkaline Manganese, a type of dry cell battery