# ham

Pronunciation: say "HAM" /ˈhæm/

## Noun

1. Meat from the upper back leg of a pig, usually salted or smoked; also, a whole leg cut for this.
   - Simple: Meat from the back leg of a pig, usually salted or smoked.
   - _She diced the leftover ham and stirred it into the bean soup._
   - _Thin slices of salty, air-dried ham were laid out on the platter with melon._
2. A person who operates a radio station as an amateur rather than as a professional.
   - Simple: A person who sends and receives radio messages as a hobby.
   - _A ham in New Zealand answered her call within minutes of the antenna going up._
   - _The club meets on Saturdays so local hams can test new equipment together._
4. A performer who overacts or seems amateurish, especially an actor with a showy, exaggerated style.
   - Simple: An actor who shows feelings far too strongly, or who acts like a beginner.
   - _Critics dismissed the lead as a ham who shouted every line and wept on cue._
   - _Some of the great hams of the silent era built whole careers on rolling eyes and clutched hearts._
5. Someone, often a child, who adores being noticed and puts on silly antics for anyone watching or for a camera. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: Someone, often a child, who loves attention and acts silly when people or a camera are watching.
   - _Our youngest is a total ham who starts dancing the moment anyone pulls out a phone._
   - _The class hams all crowded into the front row of the school picture, pulling faces._
6. The back of the thigh, or the hollow behind the knee, in people and animals.
   - Simple: The back part of your upper leg, down to behind the knee.
   - _The greyhound's hams bunched with muscle as it burst out of the starting box._
   - _The old shepherd sat back on his hams beside the fire to warm his hands._

## Verb

3. To overact, performing with exaggerated displays of emotion.
   - Simple: To act in a play or film by showing feelings much too strongly.
   - _The villain hammed shamelessly, twirling his mustache and cackling at every chance._
   - _Actors who ham it up in a quiet drama can wreck the mood of a whole scene._

## Noun

7. Obsolete form of home: the place where a person lives, or the town or country they come from. *(obsolete)* — Obsolete form of home.
   - Simple: Obsolete form of home: where you live, or the town or country you come from. Used only in very old writing.

## Other meanings

- (noun) Wanted email, as distinct from spam or other junk mail.

## Origin

**Meanings 1, 6** — From Middle English hamme, from Old English hamm (“inner or back part of the knee, ham”), from Proto-Germanic *hamō, perhaps ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kónh₂m (“leg”). It is related to Dutch ham and dialectal German Hamme (“back of the knee”), and perhaps to Old Irish cnáim (“bone”) and Ancient Greek knḗmē (“shinbone”).
**Meaning 7** — From Middle English ham, from Old English hām.
**Meanings 2–5** — Uncertain; the word is generally agreed to have first appeared in print around the 1880s. Theories include that it came from amateur; from Hamlet, whose title role was often overplayed; from minstrel performers using ham fat to remove their heavy makeup; or that it is short for hamfatter (“inferior actor”), said to come from the minstrel song “The Ham-fat Man.”

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/ham (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).