scram

verb

1. (imperative, intransitive, often)To leave in a hurry; to go away.

   “What are you kids doing on my lawn? Scram!”

   “Maybe when he found that Chet's jalopy was gone, he felt he'd better scram, and forgot the coat and hat.”

   “The boy who was playing glowered at the intruder and growled. "Well, scram Kibitzer; scram."”

   “"Come on!" barked Harry. "Scram!"”

   “Jus' go on like we was gonna buck barley the rest of our lives, then all of a sudden some day we'll go get our pay an' scram outta here.”

2. (transitive)To shut down (a nuclear reactor or, by extension, some other thing) for safety reasons, usually because of an emergency.

   “The NCR [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] further demands the plant conform to all the safety requirements put into effect during construction. This means constant re-design. There must also be several ways to scram (emergency shut down) the reactor. Some of these are automatic and some are manual.”

   “Startup of reactor recirculating pump resulted in flux spike scraming plant.”

   “The slightest problem in a reactor will cause the control rods to plunge automatically in the uranium core at high speeds (this is called scramming the reactor) and stop the chain reaction.”

   “Both active and manual methods scram by tripping power to a dedicated pump that unbalances the flows to the^([sic]) passively scram the reactor.”

   “The reactor was then "scramed", but the control rods did not slide back into the reactor.”

3. (intransitive)Of a nuclear reactor or some other thing: to shut down, usually because of an emergency.

   “This shut off current to the control rod mechanism, and the reactor scrammed (shut off) automatically.”

   “As soon as the earthquake struck, the reactors "scrammed"—shut down automatically—as they were supposed to.”

   “Immediately after the earthquake, following government regulations, the remaining reactors, 1–3, automatically SCRAMed; control rods shut down sustained fission reactions.”

4. (Derbyshire, Wales, transitive)To scratch (something) with claws or fingernails; to claw.

   “scram [...] Verb. [...] 2. To scratch, with claws or fingernails. E.g. "It's my own fault the cat scrammed me, I was teasing it." [South Wales use]”

   “A woman has praised firefighters and her cat for saving her life following an alleged arson attack. Two-and-a-half-year-old tortoiseshell Taffy repeatedly bit owner Tracie Horgan-Hodgkiss on the hand until she woke up when her flat filled with acrid smoke in the early hours of this morning. [...] "I’d like to say thank you very much to the firefighters for coming to rescue me. And I am sorry that Taffy scrammed one of them!"”

5. (US, archaic, transitive)To mine for ore on a small scale, especially from mines previously been worked on where most of the ore is believed to have been removed.

   “Just west of this pit is another one, which has been nearly worked out; but three men are scramming about five tons per day in it.”

   “Recently, Capt. Oliver, [...] set a couple of experienced miners to work scramming in this underground pit, when it was soon discovered that what the former mining captain had conceived to be a regular foot-wall, was, in fact, a thin shale of rock, which hid from view what now appears to be a very large body of clean blue ore.”

6. (British, archaic, dialectal, intransitive)Of one's body or limbs: to become numb or stiff due to cold, lack of movement, etc.

   “The bean-setters can fully appreciate the nipping, biting keenness of the air, and avow frankly, in their own peculiar idiom, "that they be pretty nigh scrammed!"”

   “But though he had breeches and waistcoats to spare, / He had nothing quite seemly for Barbee to wear, / Who, half shrammed to death, stood and cried on a chair / At the caddle she found herself in.”

   “[O]n a frosty winter night he'll keep me there while he tweedles upon the Twelfth and Sixteenth till my arms be scrammed for want of motion.”

7. (British, archaic, dialectal, intransitive)To be weakened by an accident, a disease, starvation, etc.

   “"But they will be scrammed!^* the children will be scrammed, Mary, before morning," cried Jim, scratching his head with perplexity and distress at the very thought of two young creatures sleeping on the bare boards, in a cold garret with only a shawl to cover them. [Footnote *: Starved.]”

8. (alt-of)Alternative letter-case form of scram.

   “Raising group eight rods and brining a nuclear reactor fully to life for the first time in nearly ten years—everyone was so ready they were all ready to pee in their pants. Andrews did not know he could do it without SCRAMing the reactor—in other words, pushing it into an automatic shutdown that might be too little too late.”

   “Immediately after the earthquake, following government regulations, the remaining reactors, 1–3, automatically SCRAMed; control rods shut down sustained fission reactions.”

noun

1. (Multicultural-London-English, slang)A gun, firearm.

   “Bad be say she don’t usually do this In the trap with a stick, I do this Get ’round there with a scram I don’t give a damn”

   “My manager says I'm stupid for still rollin' with a scram I hate explainin' myself and I don't think he'll understand”

2. (also, attributive)A shutdown of a nuclear reactor (or, by extension, some other thing), often done rapidly due to an emergency.

   “During scram operation, a scram signal de-energizes the inlet and outlet scram valves. The outlet scram valve vents the volume above the drive piston to a scram dump tank. The inlet scram valve supplies scram pressure obtained from an accumulator to the under side of the vented piston.”

   “Of the 14 scrams experienced, none was caused by operation exceeding the design parameters. Eight scrams occurred with the control rods withdrawn. [...] Six scrams occurred while the rods were inserted. Five were intentional to prevent accidental rod withdrawal, and one was the unintentional result of an instrument adjustment.”

   “By the time scram is completed, coolant temperatures would likely be climbing due to the combination of a large heat capacity within the fuel pins and low coolant flow.”

   “Although fission stops almost immediately with a SCRAM, fission products in the fuel continue to release decay heat, initially about 6.5% of full reactor power. [...] Corresponding with the SCRAM, emergency generators were automatically activated to power electronics and cooling systems.”

   “Other indicators can be used to measure the performance of an NPP [nuclear power plant] including the number of scrams (emergency shutdowns of a nuclear reactor), the collective dose (a measure of the total amount of effective dose multiplied by the size of the exposed population), the amount of low-level waste generated, and the fuel reliability. The number of scrams dropped from the peak of 30 in 1984 to only one in 2004 and 2–3 in the last two years.”

3. The device used to shut down a nuclear reactor; also, the button or switch used to initiate a shutdown.

   “Each room housing a radiation source has a red-buttoned "scram" switch on the wall. One touch of the switch and all equipment stops abruptly.”

   “She watched as the Marine technical team leader pressed the red SCRAM buttons for each reactor, setting off a chorus of alarms.”

   “In particular, measures have been taken to make the scram system more fast-operating and to exclude any possibility of its being deliberately shut off by the personnel.”

   “Today it is considered to be true that the accident paradoxically was ultimately caused by the emergency shut down of the reactor. By sending in the practically completely withdrawn scram and control rods, the reactivity of the reactor by the faulty conception of the rods was for a short time not lowered, but augmented.”

4. (Derbyshire, Wales)A scratch, especially caused by claws or fingernails.

   “scram [...] Noun. [...] 2. A scratch. [South Wales use]”

5. (US, archaic)A mine previously worked on where most of the ore is believed to have been removed, but which is still being mined on a small scale.

   “[page 64] Many of these old openings still afford places where ore is mined. A man can start in almost anywhere and fine ore. There is a great deal of this "scramming" done at the Jackson. Quite a proportion of the annual product comes in this way. Not unfrequently one of these "scrams" leads to the finding of a large deposit of ore. [...] [page 67] South from the east part of the Incline pit they have a scram of good ore which furnished a small product.”

   “There are numbered workings running to about 20, representing small pits and scrams, sometimes worked by contract by "scrammers."”

6. (alt-of, countable, uncountable)Alternative letter-case form of scram.

   “She watched as the Marine technical team leader pressed the red SCRAM buttons for each reactor, setting off a chorus of alarms.”

   “Although fission stops almost immediately with a SCRAM, fission products in the fuel continue to release decay heat, initially about 6.5% of full reactor power. [...] Corresponding with the SCRAM, emergency generators were automatically activated to power electronics and cooling systems.”