Dictionary

lam into en · VERB

Meanings

1. (dated, informal) To run into (someone); to have a chance encounter with (someone).
2. (dated, informal) To attack physically.
   • The girl stared at him for a moment thunderstruck; then she lammed into the old horse with a stick she carried in place of a whip. 1900, Henry Lawson, “Andy Page's Rival”, in On the Track:
   • Then I drove the whole lot forth, mother and daughter, lamming into them with fist and foot. 1887, Benvenuto Cellini, chapter 29, in John Addington Symonds, transl., Autobiography:
3. (informal) To attack verbally.
   • It's all right. An Englishwoman there lammed into me last night, first about the atom bomb and then saying that I must be a fanatic. 1954, Saul Bellow, “The Gonzaga Manuscripts”, in Mosby's Memoirs and Other Stories, Penguin, published 1984, page 120:
   • But certainly those eggs we got were as fresh as if they had been new laid. Fresh! Carrying them down to the boat one of my […] chaps dropped one on a rock and it smashed. How I lammed into the beggar! 1894 December 27, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “Æpyornis Island”, in The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents, London: Methuen & Co. […], published 1895, →OCLC, page 144:
   • 1968, Hansard, 16 July, 1968, "Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers' Associations Report," https://web.archive.org/web/20190212095659/https://www.hansard-corpus.org/ I have to admit that it was for me a substantial eye-opener when, as a member of the T.G.W.U., I attended its summer school and heard one of the national officials lamming into the men in a way which I would not have believed possible if I had not heard it.

Forms

Synonyms

rip into · tear into · lace into (both physical and verbal senses) · light into