ham sandwich

noun

"ham-sandwich" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“ham sandwich” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
12
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A sandwich made with ham.

Corpus desk

Index EN-ham-sandwich · ham sandwich · English

ham sandwich · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 12 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "H" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for ham sandwich
PropertyValue
Headwordham sandwich
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters12
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “ham sandwich” in English

ham sandwichsits beyond the 100,000 most-frequent English words, in the long tail of technical, archaic, or otherwise rare vocabulary where spelling doubt tends to strike hardest.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

ham sandwich is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for ham sandwich, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is ham sandwich, spelled H-A-M- -S-A-N-D-W-I-C-H.

Definition

  1. 1
    A sandwich made with ham.
  2. 2
    Something utterly commonplace, of modest value.
  3. 3
    A vulva.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how ham sandwich appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. The most curious volcano of the district is the Puy Chopine, a dome rising from a crater of scoria composed of granite rocks enclosed, like a slice of ham sandwich, between a layer of basalt and a layer of trachyte.
  2. Muttsen looked at Eva and Eva looked at Muttsen—and Eva did not cry out, Eva slept gently—Eva ate a little sausage—a piece of ham sandwich, for her supper—Eva ate it all up; […]

This word in other languages

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "ham sandwich"?
"ham sandwich" is spelled H-A-M- -S-A-N-D-W-I-C-H.
What does "ham sandwich" mean?
As a noun, "ham sandwich" means: A sandwich made with ham.
What language does "ham sandwich" come from?
"ham sandwich" is a English word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list