hamstring

plural hamstrings

1. anatomyOne 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.

   Lanctot slipped the tourniquet around the other, just under his groin, and twisted it tight, clamping quadriceps and hamstring hard to bone.

   2021 October 20, C. J. Chivers, “Fear on Cape Cod as Sharks Hunt Again”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 17 Feb 2022

2. informalThe biceps femoris, semimembranosus, and semitendinosus muscles.

   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.

   2010, Adam Garett, “Fried Hams”, in Reps!, 17:23

   Synonyms: hams, hammy, hammie

present singular third person hamstrings · participle present hamstringing · participle past hamstrung · past hamstrung · participle past hamstringed · past hamstringed

1. transitiveTo lame or disable by cutting the tendons of the ham or knee; to hough.

   Synonyms: hock, hough, hox

2. figurativelytransitiveTo cripple; to incapacitate; to disable.First known use 1640s

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

   1641 May, John Milton, Of Reformation Touching Church-Discipline in England: And the Causes that hitherto have Hindred it. […], [London]: […] Thomas Vnderhill, →OCLC

   1 more example

   Its trademark policies of privatization, deregulation, tax cuts and free trade deals: these have liberated corporations to accumulate enormous profits and treat the atmosphere like a sewage dump, and hamstrung our ability, through the instrument of the state, to plan for our collective welfare.

   2017 July 17, Martin Lukacs, “Neoliberalism has conned us into fighting climate change as individuals”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 31 Aug 2020

   Synonyms: cripple, incapacitate, disable