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My ego is on the line here.

My husband is insisting hamburger is a compound word because ham+burger.

I say it's not because it's hamburg+er.

Google keeps saying he's right, but really, what does google know?

Cassandra Mealer Gaspard
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  • It appears that the German name comes from Hammaburg. which is a compound: castle in the meadow or bay. But not burger in the bun :) – DjinTonic Mar 10 '24 at 08:07
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    I don't think so, see here: link – BillJ Mar 10 '24 at 08:15
  • @BillJ At that link there is no other hint as to origin of the "ham" in Hamburg beef or hamburger sandwich – DjinTonic Mar 10 '24 at 08:31
  • @DjinTonic It's indecisive. – BillJ Mar 10 '24 at 08:36
  • When I was young(er) "hamburger" was the word; "burger" came into use later, presumably as an abbreviation. (Presumably the shorter form did not get to Australia for some time.) "Burgher" is different, only cannibals would eat them. – Peter Mar 10 '24 at 10:13
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    I’m voting to close this question because it is easily answered by looking in the Online Etymological Dictionary. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 10 '24 at 19:11
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    Voting to reopen since this is an excellent example of rebracketing--in fact, it's the example Wikipedia uses to explain that phenomenon. – alphabet Mar 11 '24 at 00:55
  • 'Google keeps saying he's right, but really, what does google know?' needs deleting; I'll edit it out myself if not removed. Any references involved should be quoted and attributed. One can even access OED (with restrictions) via Google, and other quality dictionaries are freely available.. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 11 '24 at 23:37

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The sandwich "hamburger" is named after the town where it was invented, "Hamburg, New York", which is in turn named after Hamburg, Germany.

No, "hamburger" is not a combination of "ham" and "burger". It goes the opposite way... "hamburger" came first, then (later) "burger" was a shortened form of it.

DjinTonic commented:
It appears that the German name comes from Hammaburg. which is a compound: castle in the meadow or bay.

GEdgar
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    Could you provide some evidence that hamburgers are named after Hamburg, New York? Etymonline doesn't think so, There is a German ground meat dish known as a "Hamburger". It doesn't bear that much resemblance to an American hamburger, but I suspect that this is where the name comes from. – Peter Shor Mar 10 '24 at 17:44
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    'Evidence suggests that either the United States or Germany (the city of Hamburg) was the first country where two slices of bread and a ground beef patty were combined into a "hamburger sandwich" and sold.' "History of the hamburger"--Wikipedia – DjinTonic Mar 10 '24 at 18:09
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This is an excellent example of rebracketing--so excellent, in fact, that it's the example Wikipedia uses:

Rebracketing (also known as resegmentation or metanalysis) is a process in historical linguistics where a word originally derived from one set of morphemes is broken down or bracketed into a different set. For example, hamburger, originally from Hamburg+er, has been rebracketed into ham+burger, and burger was later reused as a productive morpheme in coinages such as cheeseburger.

In short: historically, the word was divided into Hamburg+er, but it has since been widely reanalyzed as ham+burger, given the shortened form burger, which has enabled the production of new terms like cheeseburger.

alphabet
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  • Rebracketing has been covered before, but not a bad example. But dictionary research would have answered the given question. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 11 '24 at 23:39