hams
- 1Plural of ham.
Salted hams hung from the rafters of the smokehouse all winter.
The old farmer sat back on his hams beside the campfire.
Note
The plural counts whole pieces, never servings: a smokehouse holds hams, but a sandwich holds ham, because the cured meat is a mass noun. The other countable meanings take the -s too, so someone squatting sits back on their hams, and in the rare email jargon that sets wanted mail against spam, the messages worth keeping are hams.
- 2The hamstring muscles at the back of the thigh, including the biceps femoris.
If you want a bigger squat, you have to work the hams as hard as the quads.
Her hams were so tight after sprint practice that she could barely reach her toes.
Similarhamstrings
Note
This is gym slang, at home in training plans: the hams are worked with hip-extension moves such as the Romanian deadlift, which build the power behind squatting heavier, jumping higher and running faster. Because it is slang, a physiotherapist's report or an injury form should say hamstrings instead, where nobody will think of cured pork first.
hams is a form of ham
ham, noun: Meat from the upper back leg of a pig, usually salted or smoked; also, a whole leg cut for this. Full entry
- Forms
- hamhams plural
- Spelling
- ham → hams: add -s
- Sound
- The ending sounds like /z/.
Use it in a sentence
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