lamb

¹

[lam]

noun

1. a young sheep.

2. the meat of a young sheep.

3. a person who is gentle, meek, innocent, etc..

   Their little daughter is such a lamb.

4. a person who is easily cheated or outsmarted, especially an inexperienced speculator.

5. the Lamb, Christ.

verb (used without object)

1. to give birth to a lamb.

Lamb

²

[lam]

noun

1. Charles Elia, 1775–1834, English essayist and critic.

2. Harold A., 1892–1962, U.S. novelist.

3. Mary Ann, 1764–1847, English author who wrote in collaboration with her brother Charles Lamb.

4. William, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, 1779–1848, English statesman: prime minister 1834, 1835–41.

5. Willis E(ugene), Jr., 1913–2008, U.S. physicist: Nobel Prize 1955.

lamb

¹

/ læm /

noun

1. the young of a sheep

2. the meat of a young sheep

3. a person, esp a child, who is innocent, meek, good, etc

4. a person easily deceived

5. 1. without resistance

   2. innocently

verb

1. Also: lamb down. (intr) (of a ewe) to give birth

2. (tr; used in the passive) (of a lamb) to be born

3. (intr) (of a shepherd) to tend the ewes and newborn lambs at lambing time

Lamb

²

/ læm /

noun

1. Charles, pen name Elia. 1775–1834, English essayist and critic. He collaborated with his sister Mary on Tales from Shakespeare (1807). His other works include Specimens of English Dramatic Poets (1808) and the largely autobiographical essays collected in Essays of Elia (1823; 1833)

2. William. See (2nd Viscount) Melbourne 2

3. Willis Eugene. 1913–2008, US physicist. He detected the small difference in energy between two states of the hydrogen atom ( Lamb shift ). Nobel prize for physics 1955

Lamb

³

/ læm /

noun

1. a title given to Christ in the New Testament

Other Word Forms

• lamblike adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of lamb¹

First recorded before 900; Middle English, Old English; cognate with Dutch lam, German Lamm, Old Norse, Gothic lamb; akin to Greek élaphos “deer”; elk

Word History and Origins

Origin of lamb¹

Old English lamb, from Germanic; compare German Lamm, Old High German and Old Norse lamb

Idioms and Phrases

see hanged for a sheep (as a lamb); in two shakes (of a lamb's tail); like a lamb to the slaughter.

Example Sentences

On the ground are images of heaping plates of food — roast lamb, vegetables, olives and dips.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Rudyard Kipling was honored at a dinner at the club on April 2, 1898, where guests enjoyed beef fillet and lamb medallions alongside Chateau Mouton Rothschild, 1882 vintage, according to a menu preserved there.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Before the competition, she switched their diet from raw lamb to raw beef.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

The 51-year-old laughed as he shared that they eat leeks and lamb - and that they have a leek-eating competition on 1 March.

Read more on BBC

“Poor lamb,” she murmured, as if the baby were already in there, nestled among the blankets.

Read more on Literature

Related Words

• fish