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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

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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

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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

This finding may reflect the relatively small amounts of Neu5Gc in cow's milk compared with red meats such as beef and lamb.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 18, 2026

Go to Leña, a new Spanish-inspired steakhouse at Maxx Royal, where the lamb chops are cooked over open coals.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 7, 2026

Like many on Martha’s Vineyard, a resort island off Cape Cod that’s teeming with ticks this year, I bid a sad farewell to hamburgers, bacon and lamb chops.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 4, 2026

Products that will benefit include some types of Calvados and cider from Normandy, Crémant d'Alsace fizzy wine, lamb from Poitou-Charentes, and Reine-Claude plums.

From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2026

A tall hat of fetal lamb balanced like a wasp’s nest on Grigori’s head, shadowing eyes as hard and gray as mica, with the same shallow gleam.

From "The City Beautiful" by Aden Polydoros

Cetera Lamb, creative director at Frieda's London salon said the industry had lost "a true legend, a real maverick in hairdressing".

From BBC ● Nov. 4, 2026

Lamb believed that he had a duty to protect the public from tyrannical government overreach.

From Slate ● Nov. 3, 2026

Lichtenberg, who said he was now sober, living in a home and working in North Carolina with Lamb, said that Young got what he deserved.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 22, 2026

Their effects have been observed through well established phenomena such as the Lamb shift, spontaneous emission, and the Casimir effect.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 3, 2026

The lands of the Lamb Men south of the river were likewise closed to them.

From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin

The TV host is pictured cradling one of his lambs, with the 66-year-old's words for the "rustlers" printed: "put them back".

From BBC ● Sep. 4, 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

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

“The Lamb Men. Would that lambs had teeth.”

From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin

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