"sham Abraham" meaning in All languages combined

See sham Abraham on Wiktionary

Verb [English]

IPA: /ʃæm ˈeɪ.bɹəˌhæm/ [US], /ʃæm ˈeɪ.bɹə.həm/ [US] Forms: shams Abraham [present, singular, third-person], shamming Abraham [participle, present], shammed Abraham [participle, past], shammed Abraham [past]
Etymology: First attested in the late 18ᵗʰ century. From sham + Abraham man (“a beggar who pretends to be ill”) Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} sham Abraham (third-person singular simple present shams Abraham, present participle shamming Abraham, simple past and past participle shammed Abraham)
  1. (idiomatic, obsolete, UK, thieves' cant) To pretend sickness or insanity. Tags: UK, idiomatic, obsolete Synonyms: do Abram, chuck a sickie, pull a sickie, throw a sickie, sham Abram Hypernyms: shirk Related terms: Abraham sham, Abram sham, play possum
    Sense id: en-sham_Abraham-en-verb-zLRTYp3N Categories (other): British English, English Thieves' Cant, English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for sham Abraham meaning in All languages combined (2.0kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "First attested in the late 18ᵗʰ century. From sham + Abraham man (“a beggar who pretends to be ill”)",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "shams Abraham",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "shamming Abraham",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "shammed Abraham",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "shammed Abraham",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "sham Abraham (third-person singular simple present shams Abraham, present participle shamming Abraham, simple past and past participle shammed Abraham)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "British English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English Thieves' Cant",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1759, Oliver Goldsmith, The Works of Oliver Goldsmith, volume 3, published 1835, The Citizen of the World, Letter CXIX, page 331",
          "text": "The boatswain found me, as he said, an obstinate fellow: he swore that I understood my business perfectly well, but that I shammed Abraham merely to be idle.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To pretend sickness or insanity."
      ],
      "hypernyms": [
        {
          "word": "shirk"
        }
      ],
      "id": "en-sham_Abraham-en-verb-zLRTYp3N",
      "links": [
        [
          "pretend",
          "pretend"
        ],
        [
          "sickness",
          "sickness"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "thieves' cant",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, obsolete, UK, thieves' cant) To pretend sickness or insanity."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "Abraham sham"
        },
        {
          "word": "Abram sham"
        },
        {
          "word": "play possum"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "do Abram"
        },
        {
          "word": "chuck a sickie"
        },
        {
          "word": "pull a sickie"
        },
        {
          "word": "throw a sickie"
        },
        {
          "word": "sham Abram"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "UK",
        "idiomatic",
        "obsolete"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ʃæm ˈeɪ.bɹəˌhæm/",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ʃæm ˈeɪ.bɹə.həm/",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "sham Abraham"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "First attested in the late 18ᵗʰ century. From sham + Abraham man (“a beggar who pretends to be ill”)",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "shams Abraham",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "shamming Abraham",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "shammed Abraham",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "shammed Abraham",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "sham Abraham (third-person singular simple present shams Abraham, present participle shamming Abraham, simple past and past participle shammed Abraham)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "hypernyms": [
    {
      "word": "shirk"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "Abraham sham"
    },
    {
      "word": "Abram sham"
    },
    {
      "word": "play possum"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "British English",
        "English Thieves' Cant",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with IPA pronunciation",
        "English terms with obsolete senses",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1759, Oliver Goldsmith, The Works of Oliver Goldsmith, volume 3, published 1835, The Citizen of the World, Letter CXIX, page 331",
          "text": "The boatswain found me, as he said, an obstinate fellow: he swore that I understood my business perfectly well, but that I shammed Abraham merely to be idle.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To pretend sickness or insanity."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "pretend",
          "pretend"
        ],
        [
          "sickness",
          "sickness"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "thieves' cant",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, obsolete, UK, thieves' cant) To pretend sickness or insanity."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "UK",
        "idiomatic",
        "obsolete"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ʃæm ˈeɪ.bɹəˌhæm/",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ʃæm ˈeɪ.bɹə.həm/",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "do Abram"
    },
    {
      "word": "chuck a sickie"
    },
    {
      "word": "pull a sickie"
    },
    {
      "word": "throw a sickie"
    },
    {
      "word": "sham Abram"
    }
  ],
  "word": "sham Abraham"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-06-04 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (e9e0a99 and db5a844). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.