go ham
To enter an enraged and uncontrollable stateTo enter an enraged and uncontrollable state; to go berserk.
Meaning
3 senses(intransitive, often, slang, with on)To enter an enraged and uncontrollable state; to go berserk.
If you use her fabric scissors, she's going to go ham on you.
(intransitive, often, slang, with on)To do something with the maximum possible effort; to go all out.
My costume last Halloween was pretty lame, but this time I'm really going to go ham.
I ordered a couple burgers and just went ham on them.
Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see go, ham.
Origin
Uncertain; the earliest use of the term in the idiomatic sense appears to be in the 2007 sUncertain; the earliest use of the term in the idiomatic sense appears to be in the 2007 song "Go Ham on 'Em" by Soulja Boy (see quotation below), although isolated usage goes back earlier. "Ham" is often thought to be an acronym of "hard as a motherfucker" (with go ham then parsing as go hard as a motherfucker), although this may be a backronym. Alternatively, it could be a phonetic clipping of mayhem. The term was popularized by the 2011 song "H.A.M." by Jay-Z and Kanye West. The fact that go the whole hog and go ham have senses that are synonymous at least raises the question of whether the pig-portions connection is wholly coincidental or not.
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Forms
goes ham, going ham, went ham, gone hamSynonyms
67 synonymsWord family
2 related wordsLessons for this word
3 lessons- A1Present simple — Because it is a verb
- A1Past simple, irregular verbs — Because of its past form
- A2Present perfect: introduction — Because of its past participle