Meaning

noun a conveyance that transports passengers or freight in carriers suspended from cables and supported by a series of towers

noun a four-wheeled wagon that runs on tracks in a mine

noun a wheeled vehicle that runs on rails and is propelled by electricity

originEarly 16th century, borrowed from Scots, probably from Low German traam (“tram, shaft of a barrow”), from Middle Low German and Middle Dutch trame (“narrow shaft, beam”), said to be ultimately from a lost West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) word, probably from Proto-Germanic *drum (“splinter, fragment”), from Proto-Indo-European *térmn̥ (“peg, post, boundary”), cognate with Latin terminus. Compare Middle…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0