spam

1 of 3

noun

: unsolicited usually commercial messages (such as emails, text messages, or Internet postings) sent to a large number of recipients or posted in a large number of places

spam

2 of 3

verb

spammed; spamming

transitive verb

: to send or post spam to
spammed customers with discount offers
spamming a message board

intransitive verb

: to send or post spam
The company was accused of spamming via text messages.
spammer noun

Spam

3 of 3

trademark

used for a canned meat product

Examples of spam in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
Noun
Other design changes would also help, such as cracking down on spam by imposing stronger rate limits for new users. Nathaniel Lubin, The Atlantic, 12 Mar. 2024 According to Google’s new policy, this type of behavior is now explicitly categorized by the company as spam. Kate Knibbs, WIRED, 5 Mar. 2024 With this influx of applications, many are likely to be irrelevant or spam. Ben Keighley, Forbes, 27 Feb. 2024 Conservative groups have alleged that Gmail has engaged in partisan censorship by relegating certain campaign emails to spam – allegations the Federal Election Commission has tossed out. Brian Fung, CNN, 26 Feb. 2024 The total lost to scams and spam in the United States in 2022 is thought to be US $39.5 billion, according to TrueCaller, which makes a caller ID and spam blocking app. IEEE Spectrum, 13 Feb. 2024 Josh Lawson, director of AI and democracy at the Aspen Institute, said even with the FCC’s ruling, voters should prepare themselves for personalized spam to target them by phone, text and social media. Ali Swenson, Fortune, 8 Feb. 2024 There is some merit to Google’s concern: RCS messaging has faced challenges with tackling spam forcing Google to disable its RCS ads feature in India back in 2022, for example. Jess Weatherbed, The Verge, 1 Mar. 2024 In a reply post on X, Musk seemed to suggest the bans were an accidental overstep of a routine sweep for spam and scam accounts. Kat Tenbarge, NBC News, 10 Jan. 2024
Verb
Thankfully, Swifties have at least a few extra days to spam her onto the top of their personal charts. Samantha Chery, Washington Post, 27 Oct. 2023 Amateur sleuths took to available satellite imagery and footage of the arcing rockets to spam out lengthy threads detailing why or why not one side was responsible based on factors like whether the impact crater from the blast could or could not be the size seen in the available footage. Brian Merchant, Los Angeles Times, 20 Oct. 2023 Data scraping is when third parties extract large amounts of information from websites—often to create databases that are then used to generate sales leads, collect insights about consumers or to spam users. Paolo Confino, Fortune, 19 July 2023 Musk’s comment also confirmed that the payouts are only for views generated by accounts that have verified handles, claiming that otherwise, bots would simply spam the system, despite reports of bot and spam accounts that have verified accounts. Richard Lawler, The Verge, 11 Aug. 2023 But while Twilio had disabled the numbers used to spam Kansas after receiving complaints, the company, like the major phone carriers, doesn’t make a habit of pre-screening texts before they’re sent out. Kevin Collier, NBC News, 13 Sep. 2022 In early August, LGBTQ+ Twitch streamers began sharing clips of a growing and frightening phenomenon: hate raids, in which mass bot accounts would spam offensive speech and threats to active streamers in their chats. Samantha Puc, refinery29.com, 7 Dec. 2021 Don’t spam your engine with random words. Celeste Polanco, Essence, 19 Aug. 2021 Some text messaging websites use your reply to verify that your number is active — then resell it to other data brokers who will spam you more. Talis Shelbourne, Journal Sentinel, 2 Mar. 2023

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'spam.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

Noun

from a skit on the British television series Monty Python's Flying Circus in which chanting of the word Spam overrides the other dialogue

First Known Use

Noun

1990, in the meaning defined above

Verb

1994, in the meaning defined at transitive sense

Time Traveler
The first known use of spam was in 1990

Dictionary Entries Near spam

Cite this Entry

“Spam.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spam. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

spam

1 of 2 noun
: unsolicited usually commercial e-mail sent to a large number of addresses

spam

2 of 2 verb
: to send spam to
spammer noun

More from Merriam-Webster on spam

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