Forms: 6–8 lamme, lamb, 7 lambe, 8 lamm, 6– lam. [Cf. ON. lęmja (pa. t. lamða), lit. ‘to lame’ (= OE. lęmian, f. lama LAME), but chiefly used with reference to beating.]
1. trans. To beat soundly; to thrash; to ‘whack’ … Now colloq. or vulgar.
1595. [implied in BELAM].
1596. Thomas, Dict. (1606), Defusto, to lamme or bumbast with strokes.
1631. Celestina, IX. 111. They will not sticke to strip them and lamme them soundly.
1719. Ozell, trans. Misson’s Mem., 306. A Fellow, whom he lamb’d most horribly.
1783. Ainsworth, Lat. Dict. (Morell), I. Lammed, Verberatus.
1812. H. & J. Smith, Rej. Addr., G. Barnwell. Quoth he, I would pummel and lam her well.
1869. F. H. Ludlow, Little Bro., 16. I wish I’d been there; I’d ha’ lammed him, I would!
transf. 1898. Westm. Gaz., 20 July, 7/2. The Lancashire amateur … woke up in astonishing fashion and lammed the ball in every direction to the delight of all beholders.
2. intr. Chiefly school-boy slang, as to lam (it) into one, to lam out.
1875. ‘A. R. Hope,’ My Schoolboy Fr., 179. ‘I had six cuts … and Vialls did lam into me.’
1882. ‘F. Anstey,’ Vice Versâ (ed. 19), 84. ‘Let him undress now, and we can lam it into him afterwards with slippers.’
1894. Conan Doyle, Round Red Lamp, 276. ‘Lam out with your whip as hard as you can lick.’
b. dial. (See quot.) Cf. LAM sb.1
1895. E. Angl. Gloss., Lamming for eels, thrashing the water to make the eels go into a net.
Hence Lamming vbl. sb., a beating, a thrashing.
1611. Beaum. & Fl., King & No K., V. iii. One whose dull body will require a lamming.
1611. Cotgr., Gaulée,… cudgelling, basting, thwacking, lamming.
1883. Almondb. & Huddersf. Gloss., Lammin, i.e. lamming, a beating.
