ham up

Idioms  

1. Exaggerate or overdo, especially with extravagant emotion, as in Hamming up the eulogy was disgraceful, especially since he didn't even know the deceased. It is also put as ham it up, meaning “overact,” as in She loves to ham it up in front of the class. This idiom probably alludes to the hamfat (lard) used to remove stage makeup, mentioned in the minstrel song, “The Ham-Fat Man.” From this hamfatter came to mean “an inexpert and flamboyant actor,” and was in the late 1800s shortened to ham. The idiom here was first recorded in 1933.

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Example Sentences

This time the fabulous Taraji P. Henson gets ham up Miss Hannigan's solo "Little Girls," and Harry Connick Jr. plays the emotionally closed-off billionaire Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks.

From Salon • Dec. 2, 2021

She’ll even ham up the Minnesota-talk when chatting with fellow Minnesotans, such as a co-worker of hers at school.

From Washington Times • Dec. 15, 2014

It was this idea of performance that Boyle – and Franco – seized upon: playing with voices, having the condemned man ham up to the camera as a talk-show host, and so on.

From The Guardian • Dec. 5, 2010

After having retreated to showing in the Rykiel boutique on the Left Bank, this performance presentation was on a long runway, the better for the models to ham up Parisian gaiety.

From New York Times • Mar. 8, 2010

Pigwidgeon was much too small to carry an entire ham up to the mountain by himself, so Harry enlisted the help of two school screech owls as well.

From "Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire" by J. K. Rowling