Hammock

How to spell hammock

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce hammock

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does hammock mean?

1. nounA hanging bed of canvas or netting, suspended by cords from two supports.

Hammock in a sentence

• He strung a hammock between two palm trees and dozed all afternoon.

• The garden centre sells a sturdy hammock with a wooden frame.

Where does hammock come from?

Language of origin: Spanish

The word came into English in the middle of the 1500s from the Spanish hamaca, which Spanish explorers in turn picked up from the Taino people of the Caribbean, whose Arawakan word for the hanging cotton sleeping net it was. Early English forms wobbled wildly in spelling, appearing as 'hamaca', 'hamacca', 'hammacker' and 'hammaker', because writers were guessing at an unfamiliar foreign sound. Over time the ending was reshaped to look like the familiar native English cluster -ock, the same ending seen in 'hillock' and 'paddock', which is how the modern doubled-m, -ock spelling settled in. The object itself spread through the world on sailing ships, where slung canvas hammocks saved precious deck space for sleeping sailors. That nautical history is a useful memory hook: the word is one of the small handful of everyday English words that trace straight back to a Caribbean native language.

How the word is built

• hammock (single root, borrowed whole; the doubled m and the -ock ending are the only spelling joints)