hamlet

¹ American  

[ham-lit] / ˈhæm lɪt /

noun

plural

hamlet,

plural

hamlets

1. any of various sea basses of the family Serranidae, found in the warm waters of the western Atlantic Ocean, especially the Nassau grouper.

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Hamlet ² American  

[ham-lit] / ˈhæm lɪt /

noun

1. (italics) a tragedy (first printed 1603) by Shakespeare.

2. the hero of this play, a young prince who avenges the murder of his father.

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hamlet ³ American  

[ham-lit] / ˈhæm lɪt /

noun

1. a small village.

2. British. a village without a church of its own, belonging to the parish of another village or town.

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hamlet British  

/ ˈhæmlɪt /

noun

1. a small village or group of houses

2. (in Britain) a village without its own church

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Hamlet Cultural  

1. A tragedy by William Shakespeare. The king of Denmark has been murdered by his brother, Claudius, who then becomes king and marries the dead king's widow. The ghost of the dead king visits his son, Prince Hamlet, and urges him to avenge the murder. In the course of the play, Hamlet, a scholar, slowly convinces himself that he must murder Claudius. The play ends with a duel between Hamlet and the courtier Laertes, and the death by poison of all the principal characters.

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The character Hamlet has come to symbolize a person whose thoughtful nature is an obstacle to quick and decisive action.

Hamlet, Shakespeare's longest play, contains several soliloquies — speeches in which Hamlet, alone, speaks his thoughts. Many lines from the play are very familiar, such as “Alas, poor Yorick!”; “Frailty, thy name is woman!”; “Get thee to a nunnery”; “The lady doth protest too much”; “There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio”; “Neither a borrower nor a lender be”; “There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow”; “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”; and “To be, or not to be: that is the question.”

Etymology

Origin of hamlet¹

First recorded in 1950–55; origin obscure

Origin of hamlet¹

1300–50; Middle English hamelet < Middle French, equivalent to hamel (diminutive of ham < Germanic; home ) + -et -et

Example Sentences

Multiple animals have been killed in the Monterey County hamlet of Corral de Tierra, about 12 miles east of Monterey, officials said.

From Los Angeles Times

The farmer who spoke to the BBC said the fighters passed through his hamlet most days on their way to other communities.

From BBC

EDMONTON, Canada — Jason Hills grew up in a rural hamlet in southern Alberta so small there were no traffic lights.

From Los Angeles Times

Surrounded by floodwaters, their hamlet of thatch and mud homes had been battling a massive outbreak of cholera, a deadly disease spread by poor sanitation.

From Salon

One evening I retired to my cabin with assurances that we would reach our destination, the small Inuit hamlet of Arctic Bay, early the next morning.

From The Wall Street Journal