sham Abraham
verb/ʃæm ˈeɪ.bɹəˌhæm/US
Etymology
First use appears c. 1752. From sham + Abraham man (“a beggar who pretends to be ill”)
Definitions
To pretend sickness or insanity.
- The boatswain found me, as he said, an obstinate fellow: he swore that I understood my business perfectly well, but that I shammed Abraham merely to be idle.
- Matthew, sceptic and scoffer, had already failed to subscribe a prompt belief in that pain about the heart: he had muttered some words, amongst which the phrase "shamming Abraham" had been very distinctly audible; […]
The neighborhood
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for sham Abraham. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA