hamstring

English

hamstrings

Etymology

From ham (“region back of the knee joint”) +‎ string.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈhæmstɹɪŋ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æmstɹɪŋ

Noun

hamstring (plural hamstrings)

1. (anatomy) One of the great tendons situated in each side of the ham, or space back of the knee, and connected with the muscles of the back of the thigh.
2. (informal) The biceps femoris, semimembranosus, and semitendinosus muscles.

   Synonyms: hams, hammy, hammie

   • 2010, Adam Garett, “Fried Hams”, in Reps!, 17:23:

     Developing muscle around both sides of a joint (think biceps and triceps, abs and low back, quads and hamstrings) should be one of your primary training considerations because strength on each side leads to lower injury rates.

Translations

great tendon

• Arabic: وَتَر اَلْمَأْبَض m (watar al-maʔbaḍ)
• Bulgarian: колянно сухожилие n (koljanno suhožilie)
• Danish: hase (da)
• Finnish: takareiden lihas (literally “muscle of the posterior thigh”)
• French: ischio-jambier (fr) m
• German: Hüftgelenkextensoren m pl, Kniesehne f, ischiocrurale Muskulatur f, rückseitige Oberschenkelmuskulatur f
• Hungarian: térdín
• Irish: teannán ioscaide m
• Maori: iohere kātete
• Plautdietsch: Hakesän f
• Russian: подколе́нное сухожи́лие n (podkolénnoje suxožílije), (colloquial) поджи́лки (ru) f pl (podžílki)
• Spanish: isquiotibial m, músculo isquiotibial m, isquiotibiales m pl, músculos isquiotibiales m pl
• Swedish: knäsena c, hassena c
• Tagalog: litid sa alakalakan
• Welsh: llinyn y gar m

biceps femoris — see biceps femoris

Verb

hamstring (third-person singular simple present hamstrings, present participle hamstringing, simple past and past participle hamstrung or hamstringed)

1. (transitive) To lame or disable by cutting the tendons of the ham or knee; to hough.

   Synonyms: hock, hough, hox

2. (transitive, figurative) To cripple; to incapacitate; to disable. [from 1640s]

   Synonyms: cripple, incapacitate, disable

   • 1641 May, John Milton, Of Reformation Touching Church-Discipline in England: And the Cavvses that hitherto have Hindred it; republished as Will Taliaferro Hale, editor, Of Reformation Touching Church-Discipline in England (Yale Studies in English; LIV), New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1916, →OCLC:

     So have they hamstrung the valor of the subject by seeking to effeminate us all at home.

   • 2017 July 17, Martin Lukacs, “Neoliberalism has conned us into fighting climate change as individuals”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     Its trademark policies of privatization, deregulation, tax cuts and free trade deals: these have liberated corporations to accumulate enormous profits and treat the atmosphere like a sewage dump, and hamstrung our ability, through the instrument of the state, to plan for our collective welfare.

Hypernyms

• See Thesaurus:disable

Translations

to disable

• Arabic: عَقَرَ (ʕaqara)
• Bulgarian: осакатявам (bg) (osakatjavam), контузвам (bg) (kontuzvam)
• Finnish: lamaannuttaa (fi), rampauttaa (fi)
• French: paralyser (fr)
• Irish: speir
• Ottoman Turkish: سڭیرلمك (siñirlemek)
• Turkish: sinirlemek (tr)

Anagrams

• Stringham

Swedish

Etymology

hamstra +‎ -ing

Noun

hamstring c

1. hoarding, the act of gathering or hoarding consumables in anticipation of a shortage (like a hamster hides food in its cheeks)

Declension

Declension of hamstring

		nominative	genitive
singular	indefinite	hamstring	hamstrings
	definite	hamstringen	hamstringens
plural	indefinite	—	—
	definite	—	—

Related terms

• hamster
• hamstrare
• hamstringsvåg

References

• hamstring in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)