sham

• IPA^(key): /ʃæm/

  • Audio (Southern England):

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  • Audio (General American):

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• Rhymes: -æm

Probably a dialectal form of shame.

sham

1. Intended to deceive; false.

   It was only a sham wedding: they didn't care much for one another, but wanted their parents to stop hassling them.

2. Counterfeit; unreal.
   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Pendennis. […], volume II, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC, page 345:

     For this young lady was not able to carry out any emotion to the full; but had a sham enthusiasm, a sham hatred, a sham love, a sham taste, a sham grief, each of which flared and shone very vehemently for an instant, but subsided and gave place to the next sham emotion.

   • 1881, Benjamin Jowett, transl., Thucydides, Oxford: Clarendon Press, VIII.64, p. 592:

     For the subject-cities, having secured a moderate form of government, and having no fear of being called to account for their proceedings, aimed at absolute freedom; they scorned the sham independence proffered to them by the Athenians.

   • 2024 May 23, Sam Jones, “Spanish police recover Francis Bacon painting worth €5m”, in The Guardian‎^[1], →ISSN:

     But the artist […] is equally famous for his drinking, gambling, his turbulent relationships, his famously chaotic studio, and for the mordant toast frequently attributed to him: “Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends.”

• mock
• See also Thesaurus:fake

• genuine
• sincere
• real

• shamboo
• sham marriage
• shammish
• Uncle Sham

sham (countable and uncountable, plural shams)

1. A fake; an imitation that purports to be genuine.

   The time-share deal was a sham.

2. Trickery, hoaxing.

   A con-man must be skilled in the arts of sham and deceit.

   • 1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 75:

     Tarzan would have none of it, and so he hunted alone that none might discover the sham that he was practicing.

3. A false front, or removable ornamental covering.
4. A decorative cover for a pillow.

• pillow sham

sham (third-person singular simple present shams, present participle shamming, simple past and past participle shammed)

1. To deceive, cheat, lie.
   • 1692, Roger L’Estrange, “[The Fables of Abstemius, &c.] Fab[le] CCLIII. Demades the Orator.”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC, page 220:

     they find themſelves Fool'd and Shamm'd (as we ſay) into a Conviction.

2. To obtrude by fraud or imposition.
   • 1692, Roger L’Estrange, “[The Fables of Æsop, &c.] Fab[le] CLXII. A Nightingale and a Bat.”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC, page 144:

     But we muſt have a care all this while, not to […] Sham Fallacyes upon the World for Current Reaſon

3. To assume the manner and character of; to imitate; to ape; to feign.

sham (uncountable)

1. (slang) Clipping of champagne.
   • 1840, M. A. Titmarsh [pseudonym; William Makepeace Thackeray], The Paris Sketch Book, volume I, London: John Macrone, […], →OCLC, page 34:

     So I orders a bottle, as if for myself; and, ‘Ma’am, says I, ‘will you take a glass of Sham—just one?’

• “sham”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “sham”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “sham”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

• SAHM, hams, HMAS, Mahs, MSHA, AShM, MASH, HSAM, MHAs, Mash, Samh, Sahm, Hams, HMAs, mash, AMHS

From Arabic شمع.

sham

1. candle

Borrowed from Arabic شمع.

sham (plural shamlar)

1. candle