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Hammett

American  
[ham-it] / ˈhæm ɪt /

noun

  1. (Samuel) Dashiell 1894–1961, U.S. writer of detective stories.


Hammett British  
/ ˈhæmət /

noun

  1. Dashiell. 1894–1961, US writer of detective novels. His books include The Maltese Falcon (1930) and The Thin Man (1932)

"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

Example Sentences

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His tough, unadorned style is so effortlessly colloquial, thought fellow crime writer Raymond Chandler, that it “does not belong to Hammett or to anybody, but is the American language.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026

Hammett adds insights from the work could help improve current policing methods that might reduce the chances of similar cases going unsolved in the future.

From BBC ● Apr. 29, 2026

Crime fiction became more realistic, an approach presaged by Dashiell Hammett and other hard-boiled American writers in the 1920s.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 20, 2026

For “Greeny” and other guitars, Hammett “sees himself as the custodian” of these rare instruments, he says.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 2, 2025

She was about to search with different keywords when she saw a link to a map of sites referenced in The Maltese Falcon as well as places Dashiell Hammett had lived.

From "Book Scavenger" by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman

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