ham it up

English

Alternative forms

• ham up

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Verb

ham it up (third-person singular simple present hams it up, present participle hamming it up, simple past and past participle hammed it up)

1. (idiomatic, acting) To deliberately exaggerate one's emotions or movements, or to overact or act hammily.

   Synonyms: ham, chew the scenery, melodramatize, overact, tear a cat

   Near-synonym: camp it up

   You can count on him to ham it up for the camera.

Translations

performing arts: exaggerate one's emotions or movements

Arabic: please add this translation if you can Chinese: Mandarin: 有意誇張 / 有意夸张 (yǒuyì kuāzhāng), 表演過火 / 表演过火 (zh) (biǎoyǎn guòhuǒ) Czech: please add this translation if you can Dutch: met opzet overdrijven Finnish: ylinäytellä, liioitella (fi) French: cabotiner (fr) German: zu dick auftragen Hungarian: megjátssza magát Italian: please add this translation if you can Japanese: please add this translation if you can Polish: odgrywać przesadnie impf, odegrać przesadnie pf Portuguese: exagerar (na atuação) Russian: переи́грывать (ru) (pereígryvatʹ), переигра́ть (ru) (pereigrátʹ) Spanish: sobreactuar (es), dramatizar (es) Swedish: spela över