: 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
spammed; spamming
: to send or post spam to
spammed customers with discount offers
spamming a message board
: to send or post spam
The company was accused of spamming via text messages.
spammer
noun
—used for a canned meat product
Examples of spam in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Kate O'Flaherty, Forbes, 28 Mar. 2024
And that's the extent of spam filtering in Quick Heal.
—PCMAG, 26 Mar. 2024
For instance, in a study of six different AI algorithms that detect SMS spam messages, Sallou and her colleagues found that the random forest algorithm, which combines the output of a collection of decision trees to make a prediction, was the most energy-greedy algorithm.
—IEEE Spectrum, 23 Mar. 2024
Email has felt overwhelming for a long time now, with all of its spam and scams and discount codes.
—Ian Bogost, The Atlantic, 4 Mar. 2024
Could the Florida law prevent Gmail from deleting or sending to spam emails sent by political commentators such as Tucker Carlson or Rachel Maddow?
—Brian Fung, CNN, 26 Feb. 2024
Likely, the person on the other end wasn't a human, but rather a spam call or a robocall.
—USA TODAY, 25 Feb. 2024
Colman envisions a world where scanning for deepfakes is just a regular part of a computer’s cybersecurity software, in the same way that email applications like Gmail now automatically filter out obvious spam.
—Gerrit De Vynck, Washington Post, 5 Apr. 2024
Any red flags or spam would be an automatic disqualifier.
3.
—Amber Smith, Discover Magazine, 3 Apr. 2024
Gene Marks, Forbes, 18 Feb. 2024
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
Noun
Krebs found attackers were using Apple’s Forgot Password feature for Apple ID to send the notification spam messages.
—Kate O'Flaherty, Forbes, 28 Mar. 2024
And that's the extent of spam filtering in Quick Heal.
—PCMAG, 26 Mar. 2024
For instance, in a study of six different AI algorithms that detect SMS spam messages, Sallou and her colleagues found that the random forest algorithm, which combines the output of a collection of decision trees to make a prediction, was the most energy-greedy algorithm.
—IEEE Spectrum, 23 Mar. 2024
Email has felt overwhelming for a long time now, with all of its spam and scams and discount codes.
—Ian Bogost, The Atlantic, 4 Mar. 2024
Could the Florida law prevent Gmail from deleting or sending to spam emails sent by political commentators such as Tucker Carlson or Rachel Maddow?
—Brian Fung, CNN, 26 Feb. 2024
Likely, the person on the other end wasn't a human, but rather a spam call or a robocall.
—USA TODAY, 25 Feb. 2024
Colman envisions a world where scanning for deepfakes is just a regular part of a computer’s cybersecurity software, in the same way that email applications like Gmail now automatically filter out obvious spam.
—Gerrit De Vynck, Washington Post, 5 Apr. 2024
Any red flags or spam would be an automatic disqualifier.
3.
—Amber Smith, Discover Magazine, 3 Apr. 2024
Verb
And some of those spam messages are blatantly spam too.
—Gene Marks, Forbes, 18 Feb. 2024
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
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.
Dictionary Entries Near spam
Cite this Entry
“Spam.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spam. Accessed 23 Apr. 2024.
Copy CitationKids 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
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Merriam-Webster unabridged
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