Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In the game of backgammon, a victory in which one player succeeds in throwing off all his men before his opponent throws off any: distinguished from backgammon, in which the opponent is not only gammoned, but has at least one man not advanced from the first six points.
  • noun A deceitful game or trick; trickery; humbug; nonsense.
  • To make into bacon; cure, as bacon, by salting and smoking.
  • [Appar. in allusion to the tying or wrapping up of a gammon or ham.] To fasten a bowsprit to the stem of (a ship).
  • noun The buttock or thigh of a hog, salted and smoked or dried; a smoked ham.
  • To play; gamble.
  • To play a part; pretend.
  • To impose upon; delude; trick; humbug; also, to joke; chaff.
  • In the game of backgammon, to win a gammon over. See gammon, n.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Backgammon.
  • noun A victory in the game of backgammon in which one player gammons another, i. e., the winner bears off all of his pieces before his opponent bears off any pieces.
  • noun colloq. An imposition or hoax; humbug.
  • transitive verb To beat in the game of backgammon, before an antagonist has been able to get his “men” or counters home and withdraw any of them from the board. In certain variants of the game one who gammons an opponent scores twice the normal value of the game.
  • transitive verb colloq. To impose on; to hoax; to cajole.
  • transitive verb (Naut.) To fasten (a bowsprit) to the stem of a vessel by lashings of rope or chain, or by a band of iron.
  • transitive verb To make bacon of; to salt and dry in smoke.
  • noun The buttock or thigh of a hog, salted and smoked or dried; the lower end of a flitch.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The lower or hind part of a side of bacon.
  • noun backgammon A victory in backgammon achieved when the opponent has not taken a single stone; (also, rarely, backgammon, the game itself).
  • noun nautical A rope fastening a bowsprit to the stem of a ship (usually called a gammoning).
  • noun dated Chatter, ridiculous nonsense.
  • verb To cure bacon by salting.
  • verb To lash with ropes (on a ship).
  • verb colloquial, dated To deceive, to lie plausibly.
  • verb backgammon To beat by a gammon (without the opponent taking a stone).

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun meat cut from the thigh of a hog (usually smoked)
  • noun hind portion of a side of bacon

Etymologies

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Examples

  • She got high and mighty, and I told her I was old enough to be her grandfather and that I wouldn't take gammon from a chit like her.

    Chapter 17 2010

  • She got high and mighty, and I told her I was old enough to be her grandfather and that I wouldn't take gammon from a chit like her.

    "Your" Miss Lackland 1911

  • Lay in a large stock of "gammon" and pennyroyal -- carefully strip and pare all the tainted parts away, when this can be done without destroying the whole -- wrap it up in printed paper, containing all possible virtues -- baste with flattery, stuff with adulation, garnish with fictitious attributes, and a strong infusion of sycophancy.

    Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, August 7, 1841 Various

  • I observed, "Well, I must say you 'gammon' through very well, for I always think you are one of the easiest speakers of the day."

    The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 An Illustrated Monthly Various

  • Mr. Stiggins began to sigh in a dismal manner, he plainly evinced his disapprobation of the whole proceedings, by sundry incoherent ramblings of speech, among which frequent angry repetitions of the word 'gammon' were alone distinguishable to the ear.

    The Pickwick Papers Charles Dickens 1841

  • The general impression seemed to be, that as an explanation of Mr Gregsbury's political conduct, it did not enter quite enough into detail; and one gentleman in the rear did not scruple to remark aloud, that, for his purpose, it savoured rather too much of a 'gammon' tendency.

    Nicholas Nickleby Charles Dickens 1841

  • 'Ha!' said the King, 'you dare to say "gammon" to your Sovereign, do you?

    The Rose and the Ring William Makepeace Thackeray 1837

  • The elder Mr. Weller observed these signs and tokens with many manifestations of disgust, and when, after a second jug of the same, Mr. Stiggins began to sigh in a dismal manner, he plainly evinced his disapprobation of the whole proceedings, by sundry incoherent ramblings of speech, among which frequent angry repetitions of the word 'gammon' were alone distinguishable to the ear.

    The Pickwick papers 1836

  • But, of course, reader, you know that 'gammon' flourishes in Peru, amongst the silver mines, as well as in some more boreal lands that produce little better than copper and tin.

    Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers Thomas De Quincey 1822

  • But, of course, reader, you know that 'gammon' flourishes in Peru, amongst the silver mines, as well as in some more boreal lands that produce little better than copper and tin.

    Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers — Volume 1 Thomas De Quincey 1822

Comments

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  • "To lash the bowsprit with ropes to the stem or cutwater of a ship in order to secure the bowsprit in place, and the lashing itself. Also the ham of a swine. Also talk, chatter, nonsense for deceiving simpletons only, humbug." A Sea of Words, 209

    Usage on gammoned.

    October 20, 2008

  • Humbug; deceit; lies. Any assertion which is not strictly true, or, professions believed to be insincere; as, 'I believe you're gammoning, or, 'That's all gammon;' meaning, you are jesting with me, or, that's all a farce.

    The gentry say death and distress are all gammon,

    And shut up their hearts to the lab'rer's appeal.--Punch, pl. 54.

    Dictionary of Americanisms, by John Russell Bartlett. (NY: Bartlett and Welford, 1848)

    October 21, 2008

  • For breakfast next I’ll ask for salmon.
    You won’t believe the sad jam I am in.
    They call me in rage
    An anthropophage
    For ordering fried eggs and gamin.

    February 26, 2014

  • Does anyone know of a rule

    To determine a prank is too cruel?

    Can anything dampen

    The pleasure in gammon

    Of April’s inveterate fool?

    April 1, 2015