ham
noun
Simple meaning
The back of the thigh of humans or certain other animals.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
hamIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈhæm
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The back of the thigh of humans or certain other animals.
Meat cut from the thigh of a hog (usually smoked)
uncountable
Meat from the thigh and/or buttock of a hog cured for food.
countable
A thigh and/or buttock of a hog slaughtered for meat; (occasionally) the corresponding cut from some other animal.
Two districts (East Ham and West Ham) in borough of Newham, Greater London.
A suburban area in the borough of Richmond upon Thames and borough of Kingston upon Thames, Greater London, England (OS grid ref TQ1771).
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The back of the thigh of humans or certain other animals.
Used this way, ham is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use ham
- “We enjoyed a delicious slice of baked ham for Sunday dinner.”
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.