If the word ‘gammon’ conjures images of a delicious Sunday lunch, you need to move with the times. Collins Dictionary has named ‘gammon’ as one of its words of the year for 2018, but defining it as “a term of abuse directed at the most reactionary pro-Brexit supporters”.

It is generally deployed to describe white men of a certain age who become pink in the face when working themselves into a rage about the European Union.

Although it has become more common since the Referendum, the term was used in 1838 by Charles Dickens to describe a pompous MP named Mr Gregsbury in Nicholas Nickleby.

“The meaning of that term - gammon - is unknown to me. If it means that I grow a little too fervid, or perhaps even hyperbolic, in extolling my native land, I admit the full justice of my remark,” the character says.

“I am proud of this free and happy country. My form dilates, my eye glistens, my breast heaves, my heart swells, my bosom burns, when I call to mind her greatness and her glory.”