Pram

Pram

Noun · /præm/ · British English for a four-wheeled carriage for pushing a baby, pushed from behind

Definition

A pram is a four-wheeled baby carriage designed for infants who are too young to sit upright — typically newborns up to about six months. The baby lies flat inside a deep, coach-like body mounted on a wheeled chassis. A pram is pushed from behind by a handle. It is the quintessentially British word for what Americans call a baby carriage or perambulator. In informal modern British English, pram is by far the preferred term.

Origin

Pram is a shortening of perambulator — a word formed from Latin perambulare, meaning to walk through or walk about: per- (through) + ambulare (to walk). The perambulator as an object was invented in the early 19th century, though its commercial rise as a middle-class status symbol came in the Victorian era from the 1840s onward. The shortened form pram appeared in everyday speech by the 1880s and quickly became standard in British English. The word ambulare also gives us amble, ambulance, and ambulatory — all built on the idea of walking or moving.