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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

To keep up with the portions of protein her customers order, Singletary, who opened Urban Comfort Foods in October, has switched to a different distributor for beef and lamb.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 22, 2026

It processes other proteins as well such as lamb and salmon.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026

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

From Salon ● Jul. 12, 2026

"We didn't see any lamb apart from lamb fat," said Harries.

From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2026

He stared at the lamb on the marker, at me, at the sea.

From "Beyond the Bright Sea" by Lauren Wolk

"Ink" follows the relationship between Murdoch and his first editor of "The Sun", Larry Lamb, with the latter the main character in the film, Boyle told reporters.

From Barron's ● Sep. 2, 2026

This season combines two books from Mick Herron’s best-selling series, “Joe Country” and “Slough House,” and finds Jackson Lamb & Co. on the defensive as someone’s killing off Slow Horses past and present.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 31, 2026

Lamb, blunt as always, makes a good point: It has been a tough slog for Lowden’s MI5 agent-in-exile.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 17, 2026

Prof Teresa Lamb, who led the Ebola vaccine team at the University of Oxford, said they had been able to create it so quickly because of the background of decades of research.

From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026

Baby Kochamma, who had been put in charge of their formal education, had read them an abridged version of The Tempest by Charles and Mary Lamb.

From "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy

"And if there was a downside, and if lambs are being taken, and that's a farmer's likelihood, and I totally respect that, let's have a compensation scheme."

From BBC ● Jul. 9, 2026

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

The paintings featured include scenes of unassuming houses visited by otherworldly guests, dead-eyed office workers, gravity-defying displays and lambs being led to the slaughter.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 9, 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

“How about ‘Pig Supreme’?” asked one of the lambs.

From "Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White

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