: marked by rigidity, severity, or stiffness
ramrodded; ramrodding; ramrods
1
: to force with a ramrod
ramrodded the charge into the muzzle
—often used figurativelyHe refused to be ramrodded into his decision.
… a self-made millionaire and visionary entrepreneur who as the fair's chairman ramrodded the project through from conception to completion.—
Joyce Leviton
Joyce LevitonThey tried to ramrod the bill through the legislature.
2
: to direct, supervise, and control
… the police sergeant chosen by Dick Snider to ramrod his fledgling Border Crime Task Force.—Joseph Wambaugh
Joseph WambaughExamples of ramrod in a Sentence
Adjective
a ramrod camp director who's been known to send kids home for a minor infraction of the rules
Recent Examples on the Web
Amy Nicholson, Los Angeles Times, 1 July 2025
Johnson, elevated to office by chaos forces—insanity and murder—seeks to finally be accepted not as the understudy but as the ramrod patrician who can set the nation righter than before.
—Doreen St. Félix, New Yorker, 14 June 2025
Margaret Coker, ProPublica, 19 Jan. 2023
Nine months later, the parish's electric lines have been replaced by ramrod straight poles.
—Rebecca Santana, ajc, 30 May 2021
Letters To The Editor, The Mercury News, 28 June 2024
Into the Great Unknown, then, goes Donald H. Rumsfeld, who died Tuesday at 88, and whose tenure as George W. Bush’s defense secretary was a monument to both ramrod certainty and tactical equivocation, the twin dogmas of Washington.
—Washington Post, 1 July 2021
See All Example Sentences for ramrod
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Noun
Hailey, a ramrod military veteran, refuses to be a redneck’s lunch.
—Amy Nicholson, Los Angeles Times, 1 July 2025
Johnson, elevated to office by chaos forces—insanity and murder—seeks to finally be accepted not as the understudy but as the ramrod patrician who can set the nation righter than before.
—Doreen St. Félix, New Yorker, 14 June 2025
Adjective
That included tutorials on how to talk to older Black people, to drop some of his ramrod military formality and to be more self-deprecating in the store.
—Margaret Coker, ProPublica, 19 Jan. 2023
Nine months later, the parish's electric lines have been replaced by ramrod straight poles.
—Rebecca Santana, ajc, 30 May 2021
Verb
The Pleasanton City Council is using scare tactics to ramrod a permanent half-cent sales tax increase to the citizens.
—Letters To The Editor, The Mercury News, 28 June 2024
Into the Great Unknown, then, goes Donald H. Rumsfeld, who died Tuesday at 88, and whose tenure as George W. Bush’s defense secretary was a monument to both ramrod certainty and tactical equivocation, the twin dogmas of Washington.
—Washington Post, 1 July 2021
See All Example Sentences for ramrod
Cite this Entry
“Ramrod.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ramrod. Accessed 30 Oct. 2025.
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