spam

• Spam, SPAM

The original sense (canned ham) is a proprietary name registered by Geo. A. Hormel & Co. in U.S., 1937. It is presumed to be a conflation of either "spiced ham" or "shoulder of pork and ham"[1] but was soon extended to other kinds of canned meat. Hormel spells the trademarked name in all upper case.

The use for unsolicited and unwanted email derives from a Monty Python sketch (Flying Circus, Episode 25). In the 1970 sketch, a group of Vikings in a restaurant repeatedly chant the word "spam". The earliest recorded real-life use for this sense occurs around 1993 which finds reference in an email dated March 31, 1993.

The term appears to have been used earlier in a different sense in relation to "Multi-User Dungeons" (MUDs), a kind of multi-user computer gaming environment before widespread use of the Internet, in the 1980s.

• IPA^(key): /ˈspæm/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• also (æ-tensing) IPA^(key): [ˈspeəm]
• Rhymes: -æm

spam (countable and uncountable, plural spams)

sense 4

1. (uncountable, rarely countable, computing, Internet) Unsolicited bulk electronic messages.

   Synonym: junk mail

   Antonym: ham

   • 2013 May 25, “No hiding place”, in The Economist‎, volume 407, number 8837, page 74:

     In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result. If the bumf arrived electronically, the take-up rate was 0.1%. And for online adverts the “conversion” into sales was a minuscule 0.01%. That means about $165 billion was spent not on drumming up business, but on annoying people, creating landfill and cluttering spam filters.

   I get far too much spam.

   I received 58 spams yesterday.

2. (uncountable, computing, Internet) Any undesired electronic content automatically generated for commercial purposes.
   • Long title, Spam Control Act (Cap. 311A, R. Ed. 2008)

     An Act to provide for the control of spam, which is unsolicited commercial communications sent in bulk by electronic mail or by text or multi-media messaging to mobile telephone numbers, and to provide for matters connected therewith.

3. (slang, Internet) Ellipsis of spam account.
4. A type of tinned meat made mainly from ham.

• e-mail, email

spam (third-person singular simple present spams, present participle spamming, simple past and past participle spammed)

1. (intransitive, computing, Internet) To send spam (i.e. unsolicited electronic messages.)
2. (transitive, computing, Internet) To send spam (i.e. unsolicited electronic messages) to a person or entity.
3. (transitive, by extension, video games) To do something rapidly and repeatedly.

   Stop spamming that special attack!

   Spam this button to get a speed boost.

4. (transitive, intransitive, computing, Internet) To post the same text repeatedly with disruptive effect; to flood.

• Wikipedia article on spamming
• Official SPAM home page

• AMPS, APMs, MAPs, MPAs, amps, maps, pams, sAMP, samp

Borrowed from English spam.

spam (genitive spams)

1. (computing, Internet) Spam.

See spamme.

spam

1. imperative of spamme

• (Belgium) IPA^(key): /spɑm/
• (Netherlands) IPA^(key): /spɛm/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: spam

Borrowed from English spam.

spam m (uncountable)

1. spam (undesired electronic content)

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

spam

1. first-person singular present indicative of spammen
2. imperative of spammen

Borrowed from English spam.

• IPA^(key): /spam/

• Audio

  (file)

spam m (plural spams)

1. spam (meat)
2. (computing, Internet) spam

• (unsolicited email): pourriel, courriel indésirable

Borrowed from English spam.

• IPA^(key): [ˈspɛm]
• Rhymes: -ɛm

spam (plural spamek)

1. (computing, Internet) spam

spam (plural spams)

1. (computing, Internet) spam

Unadapted borrowing from English spam.

spam m (invariable)

1. (Internet) spam

• spamming

Borrowed from English spam.

• IPA^(key): /spam/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -am
• Syllabification: spam

spam m inan

1. (computing, Internet) spam (unsolicited bulk electronic messages)

• spam in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• spam in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Unadapted borrowing from English spam.

spam m (uncountable)

1. (computing, Internet) spam

Borrowed from English spam.

• IPA^(key): /ˈspam/
• Rhymes: -am

spam n (plural spamuri)

1. (computing, Internet) spam

Borrowed from English spam.

• IPA^(key): /spɛ́ːm/

spȃm m inan

1. (Internet) spam (unwanted messages)

• spȇm

Unadapted borrowing from English spam.

• IPA^(key): /ˈspam/ [ˈspãm], /esˈpam/ [esˈpãm]
• Rhymes: -am
• Syllabification: spam

spam m (plural spams)

1. (computing) spam

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.

• “spam”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014

Borrowed from English spam. Earliest attested in 1997.

spam n

1. (uncountable) spam (unsolicited electronic messages)

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

• skräppost

• spammare
• spamfilter

• spam in Svensk ordbok (SO)

Borrowed from English spam.

• IPA^(key): [spam]
• Hyphenation: spam

spam (definite accusative spamı, plural spamlar)

1. (computing, Internet) spam

As the word starts with two consonants, some Turkish people will have difficulties to spell it correctly. It may be spelled also sıpam.

• yığın mesaj

Borrowed from English spam.

• (Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [spam˧˧]
• (Huế) IPA^(key): [spam˧˧]
• (Hồ Chí Minh City) IPA^(key): [spam˧˧]
• Phonetic: xpăm

spam

1. (computing, Internet) spam