Hamstring

//ˈhæmstɹɪŋ// noun, verb, slang

noun, verb, slang ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    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. 2
    one of the tendons at the back of the knee wordnet
  3. 3
    The biceps femoris, semimembranosus, and semitendinosus muscles. informal

    "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."

Verb
  1. 1
    To lame or disable by cutting the tendons of the ham or knee; to hough. transitive
  2. 2
    cripple by cutting the hamstring wordnet
  3. 3
    To cripple; to incapacitate; to disable. figuratively, transitive

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

  4. 4
    make ineffective or powerless wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
biceps femorisbuggerburdencardcastratecramp

Example

More examples

"The hamstring muscles include the biceps femoris, the semitendinosus and the semimembranosus."

Etymology

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

Related phrases

biceps femoris

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.