spam

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   Unsolicited bulk electronic messages.

   I get far too much spam.

2. 2
   noun

   Any undesired electronic content automatically generated for commercial purposes.

   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. 3
   verb

   To send spam (i.e. unsolicited electronic messages.)

   Transformed by programming ineptitude into a monster of Frankenstein proportions, it broke loose on the night of March 31, 1993 and proceeded to spam news.admin.policy with something on the order of 200 messages in which it attempted, and failed, to cancel its own messages.

4. 4
   verb

   To do something rapidly and repeatedly.

   Stop spamming that special attack!

5. 5
   name

   Alternative form of spam (“tinned meat product”).

   During World War II, of course, I ate my share of SPAM along with millions of other soldiers.

6. 6
   noun

   unwanted e-mail (usually of a commercial nature sent out in bulk)

7. 7
   verb

   send unwanted or junk e-mail

8. 8
   noun

   a canned meat made largely from pork

Etymology

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" 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's Flying Circus sketch. 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 a newsgroup post dated…