From Middle English lamen, lemen, from Old English lemian and Old Norse lemja; both from Proto-Germanic *lamjaną.
Meanings
(informal, transitive) To beat or thrash.
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:
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 Catherine Sanders, Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2002, p. 102,
An' fo' I knowed it, he done picked up that bone an' lammed me ovah de head wid it.
(dated, intransitive, slang) 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:
Forms
Spelling
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Labels
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lamming
Tense=Pres, VerbForm=Part
lexicographic
lamm
alternative
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lammed
Tense=Past, VerbForm=Part
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lammed
Tense=Past
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lams
Number=Sing, Person=3, Tense=Pres
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Translations (10)
bg бия (to beat or thrash) · bg пердаша (to beat or thrash) · cs mlátit (to beat or thrash) · es golpiza (to beat or thrash) · cs zmlátit (to beat or thrash) · es paliza (to beat or thrash) · cs zbít (to beat or thrash) · cs třískat (to beat or thrash) · cs ztřískat (to beat or thrash) · cs bít (to beat or thrash)