ham

Etymology 1

From Middle English hamme, from Old English hamm (“inner or hind part of the knee, ham”), 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.

noun

1. (anatomy) The region back of the knee joint; the popliteal space; the hock.
2. (countable) A thigh and buttock of an animal slaughtered for meat.
3. (uncountable) Meat from the thigh 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
4. The back of the thigh.
5. (Internet, informal, uncommon) Electronic mail that is wanted; mail that is not spam or junk mail.

Etymology 2

From Old English hām.

noun

1. Obsolete form of home.

Etymology 3

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 inspired the term or the term inspired the song, but that they believe the latter is the case.

noun

1. (acting) 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 ventriloquizes the King James Bible, Shakespearean and Jacobean tragedy, Melville, Conrad, and Faulkner.” 2023-06-13, Dwight Garner, quoting James Wood, “Cormac McCarthy, Novelist of a Darker America, Is Dead at 89”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
2. (radio) An amateur radio operator.

verb

1. (acting) To overact; to act with exaggerated emotions.