hammed

1. 1
   verb

   Past tense and past participle of ham.

   The guest star hammed his death scene so badly that the audience laughed.

   Having hammed it up all night, the comedian finally let someone else talk.

   Note

   Overacting is the only meaning this past form carries, and it works in two shapes: with the performance as its object (he hammed his death scene) or in the phrase ham it up (having hammed it up all night). The final m doubles before -ed, and one spelling serves as both past tense and past participle. It has nothing to do with the compound adjective in thick-hammed.

2. 2
   adjectivein compounds

   In compounds, having hams or hocks of the kind the first part of the compound names.

   Buyers at the county fair paid top prices for the deep, well-hammed hogs.

   The trainer preferred a colt that was short-backed and thick-hammed.

   Note

   The adjective lives only at the end of a hyphenated compound such as thick-hammed or well-hammed, where the first part does the describing and the whole is never graded with more or most. Ham here is the hock or the back of the thigh, the part a buyer sizes up on a hog or a colt, not the cured meat.

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