gammon

Meanings

Noun

• A cut of quick-cured pork leg.
• A victory in backgammon achieved when the opponent has not borne off a single stone.
• Backgammon (the game itself).
• A rope fastening a bowsprit to the stem of a ship (usually called a gammoning).
• Chatter, ridiculous nonsense.
• A middle-aged or older right-wing, reactionary white man, or such men collectively.

Verb

• To cure bacon by salting.
• To beat by a gammon (without the opponent bearing off a stone).
• To lash with ropes (on a ship).
• To deceive; to lie plausibly to.

Origin

• From Middle English, from Old French gambon (compare modern French jambon ("ham")), from gambe, from Late Latin *gamba, from Ancient Greek κάμπη, from Proto-Indo-European *kamp- ("to bend; crooked"). jamon.
• Probably a special use of Middle English gamen ("game").
• Perhaps related to the first etymology, with reference to tying up a ham.
• Perhaps a special use of the word from etymology 2.
• Gained popularity in 2017 (in the phrase "Great Wall of Gammon", likening the referents' rosy complexions to gammon), although the metaphor was in use earlier: the BBC points to a 2016 use of "gammon face". Not related to the "gammon tendency" in Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby, where the word means "nonsense".