ham
The region back of the knee joint; the popliteal space; the hock.
Noun anatomy, medicine
- The region back of the knee joint; the popliteal space; the hock.
- A thigh and/or buttock of a hog slaughtered for meat; (occasionally) the corresponding cut from some other animal.
- "I'll have you so your hams will stand out like horse's shanks!" de declared. - 1931, Ion L. Idriess, Lasseter's Last Ride, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 165:
- Meat from the thigh and/or buttock of a hog cured for food.
- a little piece of ham for the cat
- She put some ham in the beans and cut up some sweet potatoes to boil. - 2012, Audra Lilly Griffeth, A King's Daughter, →ISBN:
- The back of the thigh of humans or certain other animals.
- Electronic mail that is wanted; email that is not spam or junk mail.
Synonyms: ham e-mail
Origin
Inherited from Middle English hamme, from Old English hamm (“inner or hind part of the knee, ham”), from Proto-West Germanic *hammu, from Proto-Germanic *hamō, *hammō, *hanmō, from Proto-Indo-European *kónh₂m (“leg”). Cognate with Dutch ham (“ham”), dialectal German Hamme (“hind part of the knee, ham”), dialectal Swedish ham (“the hind part of the knee”), Icelandic höm (“the ham or haunch of a horse”), Old Irish cnáim (“bone”), Ancient Greek κνήμη (knḗmē, “shinbone”). Compare gammon and gam.
Forms
Derived
Admiralty ham Bayonne ham Black Forest ham burger butter-ham chipped chopped ham chipped ham Christmas ham country ham deviled ham devilled ham dressmaker's ham Gourock ham ham and beef shop ham-and-egger ham and eggs ham-and-eggs daisy ham barbecue hambeast hambone ham chin peng ham e-mail hamfat ham-fisted
Noun acting, broadcasting
- An overacting or amateurish performer; an actor with an especially showy or exaggerated style.
- Writing in The New Yorker in 2005, James Wood praised Mr. McCarthy as “a colossally gifted writer” and “one of the great hams of American prose, who delights in producing a histrionic rhetoric that brilliantly...
- An amateur radio operator.
Synonyms: radio amateur
Origin
Uncertain, though it is generally agreed upon that it first appeared in print around the 1880s. At least four theories persist: * It came naturally from the word amateur. Deemed likely by Hendrickson (1997), but then the question would be why it took so long to pop up. He rejects the folk etymology of Cockney slang hamateur because it originated in American English. * From the play Hamlet, where the title character was often played poorly and/or in an exaggerated manner. Also deemed likely by Hendrickson, though he raises the issue that the term would have likely been around earlier if this were case. * From the minstrel's practice of using ham fat to remove heavy black makeup used during performances. * Shortened from hamfatter (“inferior actor”), said to derive from the 1863 minstrel show song The Ham-fat Man. William and Mary Morris (1988) argue that it's not known whether the song...
Forms
Derived
Noun alt of, obsolete
- Obsolete form of home.
Origin
Inherited from Middle English ham, from Old English hām.
Related
Verb
- To overact; to act with exaggerated emotions.
- Near-synonym: camp it up
Synonyms: ham it up chew the scenery melodramatize overact tear a cat camp it up