gammon
To cure bacon by saltingTo cure bacon by salting.
» I prefer to eat gammon with mustard.
timmartin · Tatoeba · CC BY 2.0 FRMeaning
5 sensesTo cure bacon by salting.
(dialectal)To joke, kid around, play.
To beat by a gammon (without the opponent bearing off a stone).
To lash with ropes (on a ship).
(colloquial, dated, transitive)To deceive; to lie plausibly to.
Examples
1 sentencesI prefer to eat gammon with mustard.
Translations
1 languagesOrigin
From Middle English *gammon, gambon, from Old French gambon (compare modern French jambonFrom Middle English *gammon, gambon, from Old French gambon (compare modern French jambon (“ham”)), from gambe (“leg”), from Late Latin gamba, from Ancient Greek καμπή (kampḗ). Doublet of jambon and jamon.
From Middle English gamenen, gamene, from Old English gamnian, gæmnian, gamenian (“to joke, play”), from Proto-West Germanic *gamanōn, from Proto-Germanic *gamanōną (“to play, have fun, joke”). Cognate with Middle High German gamenen (“to mock, make fun of”), Icelandic gamna (“to have fun”). More at game.
Perhaps related to the first etymology, with reference to tying up a ham.
Perhaps a special use of the word from etymology 2.
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Forms
gammons, gammoning, gammoned, gammonedWord family
1 related wordsLessons for this word
3 lessons- A1Present simple — Because it is a verb
- A1Past simple, regular verbs — Because of its past form
- A2Present perfect: introduction — Because of its past participle
See also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.