like a lamb to the slaughter

1. Also, as lambs to the slaughter. Innocently and helplessly, without realizing the danger. For example, She agreed to appeal to the board, little knowing she would go like a lamb to the slaughter. This expression appears in several biblical books (Isaiah, Jeremiah), and the simile itself was used by Chaucer.

Example Sentences

So she set out to reveal the magnetic yet sheltered young woman who later reportedly felt "like a lamb to the slaughter" when she entered her artfully arranged marriage.

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"We protect our state, our land, our relatives, we have a different motivation. They have no way out. Their leadership, their party said, no step back. Because to retreat means prison, means execution. So they are moving forward like a lamb to the slaughter."

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He claims people died in the detention centre while he was there, saying: "I felt like a lamb to the slaughter. No one told me how long I was going to be there for - that was the most tormenting aspect of it, the fact I didn't know."

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"I have no desire to return like a lamb to the slaughter," the artist told the BBC by phone.

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He was like a lamb to the slaughter.

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