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lam

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Pronunciation

lam1 to beat, thrash

Etymology

The verb meaning to beat is probably borrowed from Old Norse lemja (“to beat, flog; literally, to lame”),[2][3][4][5][6] and it has always been a slang, provincial or colloquial word in English.[2] The OED is more cautious: it calls the word perhaps a borrowing from early Scandinavian and notes that the Old Norse verb, literally "to lame", was chiefly used of beating.[7] The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English compare Norwegian lamme and Danish lamme (“to lame, paralyse”).[8][9] The Old Norse verb is from Proto-Germanic *lamjaną, derived from the adjective *lamaz (“lame”),[10][11] and is cognate with Old English lemian (“to lame, cripple”), Old Frisian lemma (“to paralyse”) and Old High German lemmen (“to paralyse, lame”);[10][12] the English adjective lame belongs to the same family.[2][13][4] Klein gives the original meaning as "to make lame".[13] Wiktionary instead derives it from a Middle English lamen, from both the Old English and the Old Norse verbs,[1] but Weekley noted that the verb is not recorded in Middle English and thought it perhaps imitative, like bang and slam.[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

To beat soundly, thrash: 1595 in the OED and in Merriam-Webster.[7][4] Barnhart finds it already in lamback in 1589.[15]

Semantic evolution

The verb was common in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama: in Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday (1600) a character would have "lamb'd them with flouts".[16] The OED now labels it colloquial or dialect.[7] It was extended in lambaste, formed in the 17th century by adding baste.[5][17][15] In 19th-century schoolboy slang it became intransitive, in lam into someone and lam out, to hit out (1875).[7] The English Dialect Dictionary found it in general dialect and colloquial use in Ireland, England, the colonies and America, often with into and often spelled lamb.[18] American slang also had a noun lam, a punch or blow, from 1908.[16]

Timeline

  • 1589 – implied in lamback.[15]
  • 1595 – to beat soundly, thrash.[7][4]
  • 1600 – lamb'd, in Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday.[16]
  • 1637 – the derivative lambaste.[15]
  • 1875 – intransitive, in schoolboy slang: lam into, lam out.[7]
  • 1908 – American slang noun, a punch or blow.[16]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To beat or thrash hard; to strike: He threatened to lam the boy with his belt.[4][6][7]
  2. To hit out wildly or make sweeping blows, usually followed by into or out.[4][6][7]

Word family

  • lambaste

lam2 hurried escape

Etymology

The word for a hurried escape began as an American slang verb meaning to run off (1886), from which the noun was formed (1897).[7][2][15] Barnhart and the American Heritage Dictionary call it of unknown origin;[15][3] Barnhart notes that it is sometimes compared with lam1, but finds no clear connection of sense.[15] The OED, Dictionary.com and the Oxford Dictionary of English treat it as a development of the verb meaning to beat,[7][19][9] and Etymonline thinks this possible, with the same idea as the slang beat it.[2][19] Green's Dictionary of Slang also mentions an early 19th-century underworld word lammas, to depart, and a shortening of slam, as well as Major's suggestion, in “Juba to Jive” (1994), of a link with Igbo lam (“to leave”).[16]

Earliest recorded meaning

To run off, get away: 1886, in A. Pinkerton's Thirty Years a Detective, where a pickpocket who has taken a wallet calls out "lam!" to tell his accomplice to let the victim go and get away.[7][16]

Semantic evolution

The noun, an escape or flight, is first recorded in 1897 in Appleton's Popular Science Monthly,[7][15] and a list of criminal slang from the same year has do a lam, to run.[2] The verb was also used of escaping from prison.[16] The phrase on the lam, on the run, is attested by 1928 in pickpockets' slang,[2] and take it on the lam means to run away.[7][8] Both phrases are American and Canadian slang.[8][6]

Timeline

  • 1886 – verb, to run off, escape (American slang).[7][16]
  • 1897 – noun, escape, flight, and do a lam, to run.[7][15][2]
  • 1904 – make a lam, to escape.[16]
  • 1928 – on the lam, on the run.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A hasty escape or flight, especially from the police; chiefly in on the lam, on the run, and take it on the lam, to run away.[4][7][8]

Verb

  1. To run away hastily; to flee: The two thieves lammed out of town before dawn.[4][7][16]

Word family

  • lamster

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  11. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  12. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  13. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  14. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  15. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  16. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  17. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  18. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  19. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House