Word Nerd: "hams"
Context and Language Videos
Act 2,
Scene 2
Lines 196-203
Hamlet
Video Transcript:
SARAH: When Hamlet mocks Polonius by saying he's an old man with weak hams, he means he has weak legs, or more specifically weak thighs. The word "ham" comes from the German word for bend, and in English it originally meant the crook, or bend in the back of the knee, where your "hamstring" tendon is located. Eventually it came to mean the back of the leg, then the thigh, and now most commonly the meat from the upper leg of a hog.