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• hamlet
  hamlet

  noun

  a small village.
• Hamlet
  Hamlet

  noun

  a tragedy (first printed 1603) by Shakespeare.

hamlet

¹ 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 ² American  

[ham-lit] / ˈhæm lɪt /

noun

hamlet, plural hamlets plural

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 ³ 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 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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Synonym Usage

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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.”

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• hamlet
  plural
• hamlets
  plural

Etymology

Origin of hamlet¹

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

Origin of hamlet²

First recorded in 1950–55; origin obscure

Explanation

That small settlement you pass through along a country road is not just a cluster of houses. It’s a hamlet. You may be familiar with Shakespeare’s famous play describing the plight of the doomed prince Hamlet. Remember the meaning of the common noun hamlet this way: Picture an alternate Hamlet cheerfully living in a small village in the country (a hamlet), without family tension or the need to avenge his father. Does that help?

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

hamlet Hamlet hamlets

Now, this hamlet of 14,000 north of Boston is in a fierce debate over whether the penalty matched the foul.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 16, 2026

The other is its parish, the spiritual center of this Cambridgeshire hamlet and a place where community members weave themselves in each other’s lives while supporting its rectors.

From Salon ● Jun. 16, 2026

The entire hamlet can only operate if Flores’ regular gasoline deliveries make it through on Highway 1 every two weeks.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 3, 2026

Ms Smith said she had ordered oil for her parents, who live in a remote hamlet between Milford Haven and Neyland without an internet connection, for years without issue.

From BBC ● Mar. 16, 2026

In short order, telegrams began to rattle out of Dix’s office to the chambers of commerce of every city, town, and hamlet in the state.

From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown

Isn’t that what any of us wants when gazing into the mirror held up to nature, as Hamlet describes the theater?

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2026

In addition to teammates, Sasaki has grown close with the Dodgers bullpen catchers, Hamlet Marte and Francisco Herrera.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 5, 2026

Mills, who worked with Hastie in Hamlet at the National Theatre, said she "can't wait" to reunite with the director.

From BBC ● May 13, 2026

In an interview with the Independent in 2015, Pennington said watching Dench play Ophelia in a 1957 Hamlet production in London inspired him to go into the theatre.

From BBC ● May 11, 2026

Now Hamlet knelt before me, like a spring coiled tight with energy.

From "Ophelia" by Lisa Klein

Just a two-hour drive south of Sydney, Gerringong is much like many other photogenic hamlets along Australia's east coast, with multi-million-dollar properties set against stunning views of the azure blue sea.

From Barron's ● Apr. 30, 2026

Her family moved more than 10 times, from Chicago to working-class hamlets in southern New Jersey.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 25, 2025

Farmers' homes in hamlets around the industrial town of Rohtak are suddenly in demand, doubling up as movie sets.

From BBC ● Oct. 21, 2024

Since then, activists say, more than 300 people from four nearby hamlets have been pushed off their land.

From Seattle Times ● Jun. 5, 2024

Beyond this the river is occupied only by hamlets on the bluffs at the water’s edge.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann