Spam
[spam]
- a canned food product consisting especially of pork formed into a solid block.
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- (lowercase) Digital Technology. disruptive online messages, especially commercial messages posted on a computer network or sent as email (often used attributively): Install spam blocker software and keep your email spam filters updated to protect your accounts from unsolicited spam.
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- (lowercase) Digital Technology. (of promotional content on the Internet) irrelevant or misdirected: The search engine delivered spam websites that had nothing to do with my keywords.
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- (lowercase) Digital Technology. to send spam to.
- (lowercase) Digital Technology. to execute (an action) or use (an item) rapidly or repeatedly in a video game: Spam the attack button as soon as the fight begins.
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- (lowercase) Digital Technology. to send spam.
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Origin of Spam
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for spam
Contemporary Examples
Two weeks ago, spam text messages started pinging the mobile phones of Hong Kong residents associated with the protests.
Spam, squirt guns, earthworms, pirate costumes—stuff like that.
Perhaps the most curious dish available for breakfast, listed on the menu as "Everyone's Favorite," is Spam and eggs.
“There are plenty of companies that are more than happy to spam and scam customers with bare-minimum products,” McEwen says.
APN will not send you any other content—no spam, no solicitation.
Historical Examples
To the majority, spam means no more than chopped meat in a can.
The Civilization of IlliteracyMihai Nadin
Now, take a ton of email that's not spam -- in the biz, they call that "ham" -- and do the same.
Little BrotherCory Doctorow
You take every word that's in the spam and count how many times it appears.
Little BrotherCory Doctorow
If it turns out to be spam, you adjust the "spam" histogram accordingly.
Little BrotherCory Doctorow
So you're saying that you think the police should suck as hard as my spam filter?
Little BrotherCory Doctorow
spam
- to send unsolicited electronic mail or text messages simultaneously to a number of e-mail addresses or mobile phones
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- unsolicited electronic mail or text messages sent in this way
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Word Origin
C20: from the repeated use of the word Spam in a popular sketch from the British television show Monty Python's Flying Circus, first broadcast in 1969
Spam
- trademark a kind of tinned luncheon meat, made largely from pork
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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
Word Origin and History for spam
n.
proprietary name registered by Geo. A. Hormel & Co. in U.S., 1937; probably a conflation of spiced ham. Soon extended to other kinds of canned meat. In the sense of "Internet junk mail" it was coined by Usenet users after March 31, 1993, when Usenet administrator Richard Depew inadvertently posted the same message 200 times to a discussion group. The term had been used in online text games, and it was from the comedy routine in British TV show "Monty Python's Flying Circus" (beloved by many intellectual geeks) where a restaurant's menu items all devolve into spam.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
spam
Unsolicited, undesired e-mail. Also used as a verb. Spam is the e-mail version of junk mail.
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Note
The name comes from a Monty Python comedy skit about a restaurant that served only Spam.
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.