hamlet

plural hamlets

1. A small settlement or a group of houses, often defined as a settlement smaller than a village or town with usually under two hundred people.

   No, no. It's a cute little town. Actually, I think they call it a "hamlet." That's how cute it is.

   2023, Sam Esmail, Rumaan Alam, Leave the World Behind, spoken by Amanda (Julia Roberts)

   2 more examples

   Coal′brookdale, a hamlet of England, co. of Salop, on a railway, 2 miles N. of Broseley, on the Severn. Pop. 1574, engaged in collieries, foundries, and fire-brick and tobacco-pipe manufactories.

   1880, J.B. Lippincott Company, Lippincott's Gazetteer of the World: A Complete Pronouncing Gazetteer Or Geographical Dictionary of the World, Containing Notices of Over One Hundred and Twenty-five Thousand Places, page 510

   Georgetown, a hamlet in Frederick co., Md., on the Frederick & Pennsylvania Line Railroad, 6 miles N.E. of Frederick. It has 2 churches.

   1880, J.B. Lippincott Company, Lippincott's Gazetteer of the World: A Complete Pronouncing Gazetteer Or Geographical Dictionary of the World, Containing Notices of Over One Hundred and Twenty-five Thousand Places, page 843

   Synonyms: thorp

2. UKA village that does not have its own church.

   Hunsley is a hamlet in the parish of Rowley.

   1888, Thomas Burton, The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Hemingsbrough in the County of York, page 172

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   One hundred thirtie two thousand of Parish Churches, Hamlets, and Villages of all sorts.

   1604, View of Frannce

   The case stated, That Thomas G., the pauper, […] served that year at S.; which is a hamlet consisting of one house only, and between three and four hundred acres of land : that the said hamlet of S. had never contributed towards the relief of the poor of the parish of T., nor had ever been assessed thereto; but had always been assessed, and had always paid to the support of the parish church of T.: […]

   1827, E. Bott, edited by John Tidd Pratt, The Laws Relating to the Poor, Including the Collections Originally Made by E. Bott ... and Afterwards Edited by F. Const ... The Sixth Edition: in which the Statutes and Cases to Hilary Term 1827 are Arranged Under Their Respective Heads ..., volume 2, page 662

3. CanadaspecificallyAn unincorporated community of whatever size, lacking its own municipal government, but with defined boundaries.

   In 1972, the village was dissolved, and the community became an organized hamlet.

   2008, David McLennan, Our Towns: Saskatchewan Communities from Abbey to Zenon Park, page 11

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   […] Wessex county (a pseudonym) comprising rural area (pop. 8,434); four incorporated towns plus the section of land containing the largest hamlet in the county (pop. 2,489)

   1970, World Health Organization, World Health Organization/International Collaborative Study of Medical Care Utilization

   Sherwood Park is a hamlet with a population of 35 500 while the rural area has a population exceeding 20 000 people.

   1993, John S. Marczyk, Denis B. Johnson, Sustainable Landscapes: Proceedings of the Third Symposium of the Canadian Society for Landscape Ecology and Management, University of Alberta, June 1992

   By disincorporating, village residents would reduce their taxes by one third, even with a special debt recovery levy. The Improvement District, conversely, was only minimally effected by absorbing the Village. The Village voted to dissolve into a hamlet within the ID, but retained its name.

   1998, Nancy Klos, The State of Unicity: 25 Years Later: Conference Proceedings (October 3-4, 1997), Institute of Urban Studies, →ISBN

4. Any of the fish of the genus Hypoplectrus in the family Serranidae.

   Larval hamlets are similar to larval Serranus and spend several weeks in the plankton feeding on a variety of tiny crustaceans and invertebrates before metamorphosing and settling on to the reef.

   1980, Ronald E. Thresher, Reef Fish: Behavior and Ecology on the Reef and in the Aquarium

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   Shy Hamlet […] The back of this hamlet is dark in some specimens but a much bluer shade in others. […] Amazingly, each fish is a hermaphrodite, possessing both male and female sex organs, so any two Shy Hamlets should be able to mate successfully.

   2019 February 12, David Alderton, Encyclopedia of Aquarium and Pond Fish, Penguin, →ISBN, page 272

   Lastly, we get to the things that you should be able to keep with tridacnines without worrying. […] There should be no problems with any of the grammas, groupers, hamlets, hawkfishes, or jawfishes, either.

   2023, James W. Fatherree, Giant Clams in the Reef Aquarium: Biology, Identification, and Care, James W Fatherree, →ISBN, page 158

alternative Hamblet · alternative Hamblett · alternative Hamlett

1. A William Shakespeare play about the Danish royal family.
2. The eponymous main character of William Shakespeare's play, whose father's ghost, murdered by Hamlet's uncle, exhorts him to seek revenge.
3. A male given name.
4. A surname.
5. A number of places in the United States:
   1. An unincorporated community in Marin County, California.
   2. An unincorporated community in Mercer County, Illinois.
   3. A town in Starke County, Indiana, named after John Hamlet.
   4. A village in Hayes County, Nebraska, so-named as it was regarded as a hamlet.
   5. A hamlet in Chautauqua County, New York.
   6. A city in Richmond County, North Carolina.
   7. An unincorporated community in Clatsop County, Oregon, regarded as a hamlet.
   8. An unincorporated community in Raleigh County, West Virginia, so-named for its small size.
6. A locality in Alberta, Canada, named after William Hamlet.
7. A settlement in Gittisham parish, East Devon district, Devon, England, just outside Honiton (OS grid ref SY1499).
8. A hamlet in Yetminster parish and Chetnole parish, Dorset, England (OS grid ref ST5908).

1. uncountablebiochemistryA protein complex of alpha-lactalbumin and oleic acid that induces apoptosis in tumor cells, but not in healthy cells.