hamlet

1
[ ham-lit ]
See synonyms for hamlet on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. a small village.

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

Origin of hamlet

1
1300–50; Middle English hamelet<Middle French, equivalent to hamel (diminutive of ham<Germanic; see home) + -et-et

synonym study For hamlet

1. See community.

Words Nearby hamlet

Other definitions for hamlet (2 of 3)

hamlet2
[ ham-lit ]

noun,plural (especially collectively) ham·let, (especially referring to two or more kinds or species) ham·lets.
  1. any of various sea basses of the family Serranidae, found in the warm waters of the western Atlantic Ocean, especially the Nassau grouper.

Origin of hamlet

2
First recorded in 1950–55; origin obscure

Other definitions for Hamlet (3 of 3)

Hamlet
[ ham-lit ]

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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How to use hamlet in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for hamlet

hamlet

/ (ˈhæmlɪt) /


noun
  1. a small village or group of houses

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

Origin of hamlet

1
C14: from Old French hamelet, diminutive of hamel, from ham, of Germanic origin; compare Old English hamm plot of pasture, Low German hamm enclosed land; see home

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Cultural definitions for Hamlet

Hamlet

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.

Notes for Hamlet

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

Notes for Hamlet

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”; andTo be, or not to be: that is the question.”

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.