lam
/læm/
lam verb: to beat or thrash.
Verb
lam (third-person singular simple present lams, present participle lamming, simple past and past participle lammed)
- To beat or thrash.
- An' fo' I knowed it, he done picked up that bone an' lammed me ovah de head wid it.1930, Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, Mule Bone, Act II, Scene 2, in The Collected Works of Langston Hughes, Volume 5: The Plays to 1942: Mulatto to The Sun Do Move, edited by Leslie...
- They lammed each other on the head with great, clumsy stone hammers; but their skulls were so hard that the hammers bounced off again […]1953, C. S. Lewis, The Silver Chair, Collins, published 1998, Chapter
- To flee or run away.
- [Gangster running away:] Batman and Robin! Let's lam!1947, Bill Finger, World's Finest Comics #30, "The Penny Plunderers!", p. 4
- […]and she was so mad and so down deep vindictive that she reported to the police some false trumped-up hysterical crazy charge, and Dean had to lam from Hoboken.1957 September 5, Jack Kerouac, chapter 1, in On the Road, New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, →OCLC, part 1
Noun (1)
lam (plural lams)
Noun (2)
lam (plural lams)
- The twenty-third letter of the Arabic alphabet, ل (l). It is preceded by ك (k) and followed by م (m).
Noun (3) capitalized: LAM
LAM (plural LAMs)
- Abbreviation of light antiarmor/antiarmour missile.
- Abbreviation of land attack missile.
- Abbreviation of loitering attack missile.
- Acronym of lactational amenorrhea method, a method of birth control through breastfeeding.
- Abbreviation of lymphangioleiomyomatosis
Proper noun capitalized: Lam
Lam (plural Lams)
- A surname from Cantonese.
lam meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
lam in Hindi
- लाम
lam in Tamil
- லாம்
lam in Urdu
- لام
lam in Bengali
- লামের কাছে
More languagesFewer languages
- lam in Telugu
- లామ్, లేమ్
- lam in Malayalam
- ലാമിലേക്ക്
- lam in Kannada
- ಲಾಮ್ಗೆ, ಲಾಮ್, ಲೇಮ್
- lam in Punjabi
- ਲਾਮ, ਲੈਮ
- lam in Odia
- ଲାମକୁ, ଲାମ୍
Examples of lam in a sentence
- If helicopter liftouts and lovers on the lam got the media excited, the film industry wove moonbeams.
- Their top hitman, Joe Russo, was on the lam after murdering Joe Barboza in San Francisco.
- Lam. was, then, taken to the Yemen, where it was faithfully copied.
Forms of lam
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | lams |
| present participle | lamming |
| past participle | lammed |
| past | lammed |
| alternative form | lamm |
| Noun | |
| plural | lams |
| plural | LAMs |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Lams |
Origin of lam
From Middle English lamen, lemen, from Old English lemian and Old Norse lemja; both from Proto-Germanic *lamjaną.
From Arabic لَام (lām), the name of the letter ل (l).
Borrowed from Cantonese 林 (lam4) or Cantonese 藍／蓝 (lam4). Doublet of Lin and Lim.
Words formed from lam
Phrases with lam
Words that rhyme with lam
47 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about lam
- What does lam mean?
- Lam means to beat or thrash.
- What is lam in Hindi?
- Lam in Hindi is लाम. See Lam meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is lam?
- Lam can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce lam?
- Lam is pronounced /læm/.
- What is the past tense of lam?
- The past tense of lam is lammed.
Words near lam in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: lam (page history and authors); LAM (page history and authors); Lam (page history and authors); lam (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); lam (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); lam (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); lam (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); lam (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); lam (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); lam (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); lam (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); lam (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-lam.ogg.
Cite this entry: “lam.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lam. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.