lamb

UK: 'lamb', 'Lamb': /læm/ US: /læm/ ,(lam)

WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English © 2025

lamb /læm/   n. 

1. Animal Husbandry [countable] a young sheep.
2. the meat of a young sheep:
   [uncountable] a leg of lamb.
3. a person who is gentle, meek, or easily cheated.

v. [no object]

4. to give birth to a lamb.

WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2025

lamb  (lam), n. 

1. Animal Husbandry a young sheep.
2. the meat of a young sheep.
3. a person who is gentle, meek, innocent, etc.:
   Their little daughter is such a lamb.
4. a person who is easily cheated or outsmarted, esp. an inexperienced speculator.
5. the Lamb, Christ.

v.i. 

6. to give birth to a lamb.

• bef. 900; Middle English, Old English; cognate with Dutch lam, German Lamm, Old Norse, Gothic lamb; akin to Greek élaphos deer. See elk

Lamb  (lam), n. 

1. Biographical Charles ("Elia''), 1775–1834, English essayist and critic.
2. Biographical Harold A., 1892–1962, U.S. novelist.
3. Biographical Mary Ann, 1764–1847, English author who wrote in collaboration with her brother Charles Lamb.
4. Biographical William, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, 1779–1848, English statesman: prime minister 1834, 1835–41.
5. Biographical Willis E(ugene), Jr., born 1913, U.S. physicist: Nobel prize 1955.

Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::

lamb / læm/ noun

1. the young of a sheep
2. the meat of a young sheep
3. a person, esp a child, who is innocent, meek, good, etc
4. a person easily deceived

verb

1. Also: lamb down (intransitive) (of a ewe) to give birth
2. (intransitive) (of a shepherd) to tend the ewes and newborn lambs at lambing time

Etymology: Old English lamb, from Germanic; compare German Lamm, Old High German and Old Norse lamb

ˈlambˌlike adjective

Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::

Lamb / læm/ noun

1. the Lamb ⇒ a title given to Christ in the New Testament

Lamb / læm/ noun

1. Charles, pen name Elia. 1775–1834, English essayist and critic. He collaborated with his sister Mary on Tales from Shakespeare (1807). His other works include Specimens of English Dramatic Poets (1808) and the largely autobiographical essays collected in Essays of Elia (1823; 1833)
3. Willis Eugene. 1913–2008, US physicist. He detected the small difference in energy between two states of the hydrogen atom (Lamb shift). Nobel prize for physics 1955