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• lamb
  lamb

  noun

  a young sheep.
• Lamb
  Lamb

  noun

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

lamb

¹ American  

[lam] / læm /

noun

lambs plural

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.

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verb (used without object)

1. to give birth to a lamb.

Lamb ² American  

[lam] / læm /

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.

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lamb ¹ British  

/ 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

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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 British  

/ 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

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Lamb ³ British  

/ læm /

noun

1. a title given to Christ in the New Testament

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lamb Idioms  

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

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• lamblike
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• lambs
  plural

Etymology

Origin of lamb

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

Explanation

A lamb is a baby sheep. Most female sheep, or ewes, give birth to one or two lambs each spring. Lambs are so cute that they tend to show up in nursery rhymes — as in "Mary had a little lamb." Awwww. When you're petting a newborn sheep, you can call it a lamb, but if you're eating meat that comes from this same animal, it's a mass noun, lamb without the a. The word can be a verb too, as when a ewe lambs, or gives birth, and it's been a common pet name, especially for a young child, since at least the eleventh century: "Okay, time for bed, lamb!"

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

lamb Lamb lambs

For something even more dramatic, La Tienda’s double-frenched racks of lamb make a hell of a centerpiece.

From Salon ● Jul. 12, 2026

Those giant kebab sticks were then labelled to suggest they were made with between 50% to 90% lamb, depending on the recipe.

From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2026

Vance has stayed committed to the diet, often eating eggs, sauerkraut, pickles, blackberries and raspberries for lunch, and beef or lamb with sauerkraut for dinner.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 18, 2026

They slurped the cafe’s signature lavashak smoothie — a tart mixture including peaches, various berries and pomegranate molasses — and munched on slow-cooked lamb over nachos with melty Armenian string cheese.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 16, 2026

“Fire loses air,” said Smithy, lecturing as he pulled a strip of meat from the lamb shank and dipped it in yogurt.

From "The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams" by Daniel Nayeri

“It’s moving so fast on my Instagram right now that my analytics will not pull up the correct numbers,” Lamb said of her post.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 13, 2026

Ecclestone gave England the opening by removing Shafali, caught by sub fielder Emma Lamb, but Mandhana found valuable support from Yastika Bhatia who will resume alongside the opener on 39 on the third day.

From BBC ● Jul. 11, 2026

“Clients in this realm want volatility,” Matt Lamb, a portfolio consultant for GraniteShares, said of leveraged ETFs in a phone interview with MarketWatch.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 9, 2026

The most expensive pen Murrell bought - a Montblanc white gold fountain pen purchased for £4,225 - was found by officers during the search of Gordon Lamb House.

From BBC ● Jun. 23, 2026

AT four o’clock that afternoon, I walk as fast as I can from the bus stop to the Church a the Lamb.

From "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett

As children, cattle and lambs happily commune with bears, lions and wolves in the foreground, the background depicts William Penn making a treaty with Tamanend, chief of the Lenape Nation, and founding Pennsylvania.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 3, 2026

That also explains why, and how, his devoted rams, lambs and ewes are able to dedicate themselves to solving his murder.

From Salon ● May 17, 2026

The city sprawl quickly gave way to stone-walled fields full of dazzling yellow rape and spring-green grass dotted with sheep and frolicking lambs.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 14, 2026

In 2021, a ewe in Scotland gave birth to eight live lambs, believed to be a UK record.

From BBC ● May 8, 2026

What if I had brought my little son here, and he could have grown up with Einar teaching him about the birds, and the lambs...

From "Son" by Lois Lowry

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