Spam

How to spell spam

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce spam

What does spam mean?

1. nounUnsolicited and usually unwanted messages sent in bulk, especially by email.
2. verbTo send the same unwanted message repeatedly or in bulk, or to flood a channel with it.

Spam in a sentence

• noun

  The filter quietly moves most spam into a separate folder.

• verb

  Please do not spam the support forum with the same question.

• noun

  His inbox was buried under spam advertising fake watches.

• verb

  Bots will spam the comments section within minutes of posting.

Where does spam come from?

Language of origin: Other

Spam began as a registered trademark, coined in 1937 by the American food company Hormel for a tinned cooked-meat product; the name is widely understood to be a blend of 'spiced ham', though the company has been coy about its exact origin. The word leapt from the supermarket shelf into computing slang because of a 1970 Monty Python sketch in which a cafe menu repeats the word 'spam' over and over until it drowns out everything else. Early users of online forums and chat systems borrowed that image of mindless, endless repetition to describe messages that were posted again and again to flood a discussion. By the mid-1990s the term had settled firmly onto unsolicited bulk email, and from there onto junk text messages and unwanted comments. The spelling is mercifully simple, four letters that never doubled or shifted, because it is a modern coinage rather than an inherited word.

How the word is built

• spam (a single unanalysable root; originally a blend of 'sp(iced)'
• '(h)am')