How to pronounce ham

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What ham means

noun

Most people know ham in its everyday sense. Here's its other meaning.

An actor who overacts to grab attention

In a sentence: The ham in our class play waved his arms wildly and shouted every single line.

Where it comes from: No one is sure where this meaning came from, though it first showed up in print around the 1880s. One guess is that it came from amateur; another is that it was cut down from hamfatter, an old word for a poor actor.

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