English Explanatory Dictionary

indict a ham sandwich

English dictionary entry

Meanings

verb
  1. Of a grand jury: to charge a person with a crime, despite a perceived lack of evidence.

Pronunciation

/ɪnˈdaɪt‿ə ˌhæm ˈsændwɪt͡ʃ/ LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-indict a ham sandwich.wav LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-indict a ham sandwich.wav

Word forms

indict a ham sandwich indicts a ham sandwich indicting a ham sandwich indicted a ham sandwich

Etymology

Possibly alluding to ham sandwich (“something utterly commonplace, of modest value”). The term was popularized by the American jurist Sol Wachtler (born 1930) who used it in 1985 shortly after his appointment as Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals when expressing the view that the use of grand juries to bring indictments should be abolished: see the quotation from 1985.

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
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