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ham it up

 - 5 dictionary results

ham

2  [ham] noun, verb, hammed, ham⋅ming.
Use ham it up in a Sentence
–noun
1. an actor or performer who overacts.
2. an operator of an amateur radio station.
–verb (used without object), verb (used with object)
3. to act with exaggerated expression of emotion; overact.
—Idiom
4. ham it up, to overact; ham.
Origin:
1880–85; short for hamfatter, after The Hamfat Man, a black minstrel song celebrating an awkward man
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Cultural Dictionary

Ham

One of the three sons of Noah. According to the biblical account, Noah and his family were the only human survivors of the great Flood and were therefore the progenitors of all the peoples on Earth.

Note: Egypt was traditionally called “the Land of Ham,” and Ham was considered to be the ancestor of the Egyptians and of all African peoples south of Egypt.
Note: The “curse of Ham” refers to the biblical story in which Ham, seeing his father drunk and naked, refused to turn away as his two brothers did. When Noah awoke, he cursed Ham and his son Canaan, supposedly causing a darker pigmentation in their descendants. This so-called curse has often been wrongly used to justify racism.
The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Slang Dictionary
ham

  1. n.
    an actor; a bad actor. (See also hams.) : What a ham! A real showoff.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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Word Origin & History

ham  (2)
"overacting performer," 1882 Amer.Eng., apparently a shortening of hamfatter (1880) "actor of low grade," said to be from an old minstrel show song, "The Ham-fat Man" (1863). The song itself, a black-face number, has nothing to do with acting, so the connection must be with the quality of acting in minstrel shows, where the song was popular. The notion of "amateurish" led to the sense of "amateur radio operator" (1919). The verb in the performance sense is first recorded 1933.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Medical Dictionary

Main Entry: ham
Pronunciation: 'ham
Function: noun
1 : the part of the leg behind the knee : the hollow of the knee : POPLITEAL SPACE
2 : a buttock with its associated thigh or with the posterior part of a thigh—usually used in plural
3 : a hock or the hinder part of a hock
Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.
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