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Had vs Ham - What's the difference?

had | ham |

As a verb had

is (have).

As a noun ham is

haem / heme.

had

English

Verb

(head)
  • (have)
  • *1814 , Jane Austen, Mansfield Park :
  • *:About thirty years ago, Miss Maria Ward of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton.
  • (auxiliary) Used to form the pluperfect tense, expressing a completed action in the past (+ past participle).
  • *2011 , Ben Cooper, The Guardian , 15 April:
  • *:Cooper seems an odd choice, but imagine if they had taken MTV's advice and chosen Robert Pattinson?
  • As past subjunctive: ‘would have’.
  • *1499 , (John Skelton), The Bowge of Courte :
  • *:To holde myne honde, by God, I had grete payne; / For forthwyth there I had him slayne, / But that I drede mordre wolde come oute.
  • *, II.4:
  • *:Julius Cæsar had escaped death, if going to the Senate-house, that day wherein he was murthered by the Conspirators, he had read a memorial which was presented unto him.
  • *1849 , , In Memoriam , 24:
  • *:If all was good and fair we met, / This earth had been the Paradise / It never look’d to human eyes / Since our first Sun arose and set.
  • Usage notes

    Had'', like (that), is one of a very few words to be correctly used twice in succession in English, e.g. ''He had had several operations previously.

    Statistics

    *

    ham

    English

    (wikipedia ham)

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) hamme, from (etyl) . Compare gammon.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (anatomy) The region back of the knee joint; the popliteal space; the hock.
  • (countable) A thigh and buttock of an animal slaughtered for meat.
  • (uncountable) Meat from the thigh of a hog cured for food.
  • a little piece of ham for the cat
  • * (rfdate), Audra Lilly Griffeth, A King's Daughter (ISBN 146915532X):
  • She put some ham in the beans and cut up some sweet potatoes to boil.
  • The back of the thigh.
  • (internet, informal) Electronic mail that is wanted; mail that is not spam or junk mail.
  • Derived terms
    * ham-fisted * hambone * hammy, hamstring

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) .

    Noun

    (-)
  • Usage notes

    * Persists in many old place names, such as (Buckingham).

    References

    *

    Etymology 3

    Shortened from , said to derive from the 1863 minstrel show song The Ham-fat Man . "ham", Online Etymology Dictionary

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An overacting or amateurish performer; an actor with an especially showy or exaggerated style.
  • An amateur radio operator.
  • Synonyms
    * radio amateur (amateur radio operator)

    Verb

  • To overact; to act with exaggerated emotions.
  • Anagrams

    *