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Glite Dictionary
holiday ham

holiday ham

1 1.6
A cooked piece of pork people serve at special meals like Christmas or Easter
  • noun
  • /ˈhɑːləˌdeɪ hæm/
translation icon : jamón festivo
  • For Thanksgiving, many choose to serve holiday ham instead of turkey.

Examples

  • She prepared a succulent holiday ham for the Easter dinner celebration.

  • - What about a nice holiday ham?

    Space Jam (1996)

  • Turkey eaters have reacted to price increases of almost eight percent over 2009 by eating more holiday ham and Thanksgiving pizza.

    Blog text (25)

  • These workers, they've been here for 10, 15 years processing your bacon, your holiday ham and now they're getting picked up like they're criminals.

    Food, Inc. (2008)

  • Every Christmas, our family enjoys a delicious holiday ham as the main dish.

Synonyms

ham
vsholiday ham
162 1.0

Meat from a pig's back leg usually cured and eaten hot or cold

is prepared and served specifically for festive meals like Christmas or Easter

Surface Forms

holiday ham singular
holiday hams plural

Morphology

holiday + ham

The meaning 'a ham prepared and served for a festive occasion' is directly and transparently built from 'holiday' (festive day) + 'ham' (cured pork); the modifier 'holiday' clearly specifies the occasion/context for the food. This occasion+food compounding is common in English and cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer the intended meaning.

Etymology

Holiday ham comes from the old practice of saving a special ham for a holiday — a big family 'celebration' like Christmas or Easter. People would salt and smoke a pig leg to keep it, then bring out the shiny, glazed holiday ham for the feast, so the phrase now means a ham made and served for a special meal.