Dictionaries › English

ham

Pronunciation: /ˈhæm/

The English word “ham” has 8 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. The region back of the knee joint; the popliteal space; the hock.
  2. A thigh and/or buttock of a hog slaughtered for meat; (occasionally) the corresponding cut from some other animal.
  3. Meat from the thigh and/or buttock of a hog cured for food.
  4. The back of the thigh of humans or certain other animals.
  5. Electronic mail that is wanted; email that is not spam or junk mail.
  6. An overacting or amateurish performer; an actor with an especially showy or exaggerated style.
  7. An amateur radio operator.

verb

  1. To overact; to act with exaggerated emotions.

Etymology

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…

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “ham” there

More English words

About this dictionary

The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.