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• Spam
  Spam

  a canned food product consisting especially of pork formed into a solid block.
• spam
  spam

  verb

  to send unsolicited electronic mail or text messages simultaneously to a number of e-mail addresses or mobile phones

Spam

American  

[spam] / spæm /

Trademark.

1. a canned food product consisting especially of pork formed into a solid block.

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noun

1. (lowercase) 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.

adjective

1. (lowercase) (of promotional content on the internet) irrelevant or misdirected.

   The search engine delivered spam websites that had nothing to do with my keywords.

verb (used with object)

spammed, spamming

1. (lowercase) to send spam to.

2. (lowercase) 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.

verb (used without object)

spammed, spamming

1. (lowercase) to send spam.

spam ¹ British  

/ spæm /

verb

1. to send unsolicited electronic mail or text messages simultaneously to a number of e-mail addresses or mobile phones

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noun

1. unsolicited electronic mail or text messages sent in this way

Spam ² British  

/ spæm /

noun

1. a kind of tinned luncheon meat, made largely from pork

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spam Cultural  

1. Unsolicited, undesired e-mail. Also used as a verb. Spam is the e-mail version of junk mail.

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Discover More

The name comes from a Monty Python comedy skit about a restaurant that served only Spam.

Other Word Forms

• spammer
  noun

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Etymology

Origin of Spam

First recorded in 1937 for the trademarked term; sp(iced) + (h)am ¹; 1990–95 for the other senses, probably referring to a comedy routine on Monty Python's Flying Circus, British TV series, in which the word Spam is used repeatedly

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Explanation

There are few things more annoying than an email inbox full of spam. Spam is unwanted internet advertising that's sent to a huge number of people at a time. In 1937, a canned meat product named Spam was introduced by Hormel Foods, which said that its name was a combination of the words spiced and ham. Later, in a 1970 comedy sketch, the word was used in a silly song, in which the name of the food product was repeated over and over, drowning out the conversation. Not until the early 1990s did the more modern definition of spam come into use, referring to mass-distributed email advertisements under which more important content gets buried. As a verb, to spam is to send such a message.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Spam spam spammed spamming

Hormel Foods, the Austin, Minn.-based maker of Spam lunch meat and Skippy peanut butter, named Ash Bhumbla as its next chief financial officer, effective Sept. 8.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 25, 2026

Hormel Foods HRL -0.70%decrease; red down pointing triangle is cutting 250 corporate and sales jobs as part of a restructuring, the food company that owns brands including Planters, Skippy and Spam said Tuesday.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 4, 2025

Hormel, which is best known as the parent of the Spam and Planters brands, recently cut its profit outlook amid higher-than-expected costs for meat, as well as nuts.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 30, 2025

For Christmas dinner, they toasted moldy bread, and Gibbons surprised everyone with a single can of Spam that they split among everyone.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 26, 2025

They were here to cut open my apartment and pull me out of it, like a chunk of Spam being removed from a can.

From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline

That may include user-run blogs that could be used to spread computer viruses, spam people or distribute malicious content.

From Barron's ● Oct. 22, 2026

The police department added that there were no signs of breaches to any departmental systems, and that its safeguarding processes stopped the fake tip from getting past its spam folder.

From BBC ● Oct. 10, 2026

The submission, dated July 18, went to spam and was never sent for further investigation.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026

Instagram’s terms of service prohibit intellectual property violations, spam, illegal content, hate speech, bullying and abuse, self-injury, graphic violence and inappropriate imagery that may include nudity or sexual content.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2026

The thing is, the information that comes in may not be crucial at all; it may actually be irrelevant, spam, but, weirdly, that seems to reinforce the compulsion to answer the device.

From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel

Before the pandemic, Xu remembers being spammed in recruitment group chats with new job postings every spring and fall.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 16, 2026

They are being spammed with it,” she says.

From National Geographic ● Jan. 23, 2024

"You are not going to be spammed by the government with constant incoming messages. The bar for this is exceptionally high," Mr Dowden told BBC News.

From BBC ● Apr. 5, 2023

One Paris-based manager of a debt fund that held Credit Suisse AT1s said he had been "spammed" with emails from lawyers.

From Reuters ● Mar. 23, 2023

“And my cousin Molly. She spammed me with quotes for a week straight.”

From "Leah on the Offbeat" by Becky Albertalli

People with names like the other six accused also complained about rage spamming and threats.

From Barron's ● Oct. 15, 2026

The company has reached out to the institutions affected, he added, saying the broader review, including lower-severity incidents like “ agents spamming websites” will take months.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2026

As the spamming bots got even worse, Quora changed the terms of service and did away with BNBR, then automated the moderation process.

From Slate ● Feb. 2, 2024

It found 79 million emails and 1 million texts were sent out over a seven-month spamming campaign.

From BBC ● Jan. 11, 2024

The illiterate message can send itself automatically, as image or as speech, as video or as Internet spamming, whatever best hits its human target, to people's addresses.

From The Civilization of Illiteracy by Mihai Nadin

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