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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

Flooding from Storm Chandra in the hamlet of Weycroft on January 27, 2026 in Axminster, England.

From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2026

The smoke triggered evacuations in one Belgian village and two hamlets of a second -- with residents of the hamlet of Sourbrodt given the green light to return home on Monday night.

From Barron's ● Aug. 18, 2026

But if you drive the river road past Monte Rio and the historic but touristy shops at Duncans Mills, you reach the coastal hamlet of Jenner.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026

Yet in all those years I didn’t know what a hamlet was.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026

We still need some Paul Revere of conscience to alert every hamlet and every village of America that revolution is still at hand.

From "While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age during the Civil Rights Movement" by Carolyn Maull McKinstry

Coltrane, born in Hamlet, N.C., on Sept. 23, died in 1967, at the age of 40.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026

Charleson playing Hamlet, scaling the Everest for actors, reminded me of David Bowie making “Blackstar” as he was dying.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 5, 2026

It is because I remembered that in the McLean Hamlet, Dunsinane Court branches off from Birnam Wood Drive.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026

In a response letter addressed to Crompton and shared with the BBC, Reform acknowledged the "excellent work" done by The Hamlet.

From BBC ● May 22, 2026

Hamlet, now twenty-two, was no taller, though more sinewy, and he seemed more intense than before.

From "Ophelia" by Lisa Klein

She’s tried them everywhere from McDonald’s to Michelin-starred haunts, in tony European hamlets and Midwestern hockey towns.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 31, 2026

Dozens of rural hamlets in the state of Victoria were urged to evacuate while they still could.

From Barron's ● Jan. 8, 2026

This part of rural Victoria is dotted with small towns and hamlets, which may at first appear quite isolated.

From BBC ● Jul. 7, 2025

Fueled by winds and heat, the fire prompted evacuations in a number of mountain hamlets, towns and resorts along the state route, with towering flames jumping across hillsides and canyons.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2024

Personally, I would have been pleased to be walking now through hamlets and past farms rather than through some silent “protected corridor.”

From "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson