HAMLET Definition & Meaning

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hamlet

[ ham-lit ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

noun

a small village.
British. a village without a church of its own, belonging to the parish of another village or town.

hamlet

[ ham-lit ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

noun

plural (especially collectively) hamlet, (especially referring to two or more kinds or species) hamlets.

any of various sea basses of the family Serranidae, found in the warm waters of the western Atlantic Ocean, especially the Nassau grouper.

Hamlet

[ ham-lit ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

noun

(italics) a tragedy (first printed 1603) by Shakespeare.
the hero of this play, a young prince who avenges the murder of his father.

hamlet

/ ˈ��æ��ɪ�� /

noun

a small village or group of houses
(in Britain) a village without its own church

Hamlet

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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Notes

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.”

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51�Թ� History and Origins

Origin of hamlet¹

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

Origin of hamlet²

First recorded in 1950–55; origin obscure

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51�Թ� History and Origins

Origin of hamlet¹

C14: from Old French hamelet, diminutive of hamel, from ham, of Germanic origin; compare Old English hamm plot of pasture, Low German hamm enclosed land; see home

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Synonym Study

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

When the toddler disappeared, dozens of journalists flocked to Haut-Vernet, often outnumbering the 25 residents of the tiny Alpine hamlet.

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The Searle couple retired to this region five years ago, and other mailboxes in the hamlet indicate they are not the only expatriates in the region.

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The couple's bodies were found at about 12:20 on Thursday at their home in the hamlet of Les Pesquiès, in a rural area north of the city of Toulouse.

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There had been arrests of several Alawite activists in the area, he said, and he didn’t trust the checkpoints on either end of the hamlet to stop vigilantes.

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Temperatures in a hamlet in northern Scotland dropped to -17.3C on Friday - the UK's coldest January night in 15 years.

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