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Glite Dictionary
hammy

hammy

1 8.1
Acting or behavior that is exaggerated and not natural
  • adjective
  • /ˈhæmi/
  • Informal
translation icon : sobreactuado
  • It's not EastEnders where it's all hammy and big, you know.

Oh my gosh, Claire mad Claire twice dot, she put her Instagram handle or something hammy.

Examples

  • And you see the most hammy theater performances getting great reviews.

    Harry Brown (2009)

  • The actor's performance was so hammy that the audience couldn't stop laughing.

  • 'You were in all your hammy glory.'

    Stardust Memories (1980)

  • Despite this, and the various examples of bad acting and hammy dialogue, Star Wars worked.

    Blog text (31)

  • Why blame the director of Alien: Resurrection for a hammy script?

    Blog text (22)

  • What made the fight between these two really memorable is how hammy JoJo's lines are, and I like it.

    Blog text (9)

  • The acting in The House of the Devil is also top-notch, always serious and never hammy.

    Blog text (9)

  • Chris Pine is sufficiently hammy as Kirk to fill the shoes of that magnificent paradigm of manhood, William Shatner.

    Academic text (2009)

  • In that play, the dialogue felt overly hammy, making it hard to take the story seriously.

  • Her hammy reactions to the dramatic scenes were both entertaining and cringeworthy.

Synonyms

melodramatic
vshammy
32 5.6

Showing feelings in a way that is too strong

is more affected and explicitly overacted rather than only emotional
overdramatic
vshammy
7 4.9

Showing too much feeling about small things

is more clearly overacted and affected as a performance choice

Antonyms

natural
660 1.0

Normal and healthy for the body or mind

subtle
276 6.0

Not easy to notice or understand because it is small

How Hammy

histrionic
6 8.7
hammy
  • Informal
1 8.1
affected
7.5

Surface Forms

hammy positive

Morphology

hammy = ham (semi-transparent) = ham + y

The adjective is formed from 'ham' with the productive adjectival suffix '-y', but the base sense 'ham' = 'an overacting performer' is slang/less familiar than the common noun 'ham' (pork), so learners may not transparently derive the meaning.

Etymology

Hammy comes from the old idea of a ham actor—someone who hams it up or 'acts in a loud, showy way'. So hammy describes acting that is exaggerated or overdone.