: a jet engine that consists essentially of a hollow tube without mechanical components and depends on the aircraft's speed of flight to compress the air which is supplied to a burner from which hot gases are discharged rearward
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Traditional ramjet engines work by relying on the aircraft's speed to scoop up and compress air into the engine.
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New Atlas, 20 Dec. 2024
Sometime this year, the X-51, developed by a consortium that includes the U.S. Air Force, NASA, and Boeing, will test its air-breathing scramjet—or supersonic combustion ramjet—engine to achieve Mach 7, which is 10 times as fast as a conventional airliner.
—Erico Guizzo, IEEE Spectrum, 30 Apr. 2010
Interstellar ramjets face challenges such as the sparse density of the interstellar medium and immense energy and fusion requirements.
—Victoria Corless, Space.com, 22 Jan. 2025
Those advantages also have a downside: ramjets are entirely ineffective at low speeds and are often accompanied by turbojets to handle subsonic flight, where the airspeed isn't enough to feed air-hungry ramjet engines.
—New Atlas, 20 Dec. 2024
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New Atlas, 20 Dec. 2024
Sometime this year, the X-51, developed by a consortium that includes the U.S. Air Force, NASA, and Boeing, will test its air-breathing scramjet—or supersonic combustion ramjet—engine to achieve Mach 7, which is 10 times as fast as a conventional airliner.
—Erico Guizzo, IEEE Spectrum, 30 Apr. 2010
Interstellar ramjets face challenges such as the sparse density of the interstellar medium and immense energy and fusion requirements.
—Victoria Corless, Space.com, 22 Jan. 2025
Those advantages also have a downside: ramjets are entirely ineffective at low speeds and are often accompanied by turbojets to handle subsonic flight, where the airspeed isn't enough to feed air-hungry ramjet engines.
—New Atlas, 20 Dec. 2024
See All Example Sentences for ramjet
Cite this Entry
“Ramjet.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ramjet. Accessed 21 Mar. 2025.
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ramjet
noun
ram·jet
ˌram-ˌjet 
: a jet engine that depends on the speed of flight for the compression of the air it takes in rather than using a mechanical compressor
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