spam

Meaning

Noun

1. Unsolicited bulk electronic messages.
2. Any undesired electronic content automatically generated for commercial purposes.
3. Excessive, often unwanted and repeated online messages.
4. Ellipsis of spam account.
5. A type of tinned meat made mainly from ham.

Verb

1. To send spam (i.e. unsolicited electronic messages.)
2. To send spam (i.e. unsolicited electronic messages) to a person or entity.
3. To send messages repeatedly, often with disruptive effect; to flood.
4. To do something rapidly and repeatedly.

Synonyms

junk e-mail

junk mail

unsolicited email

troll

🧌

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈspæm/

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 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 a newsgroup post 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.