lamb

English

Etymology

From Middle English lamb, from Old English lamb, from Proto-West Germanic *lamb, from Proto-Germanic *lambaz, probably from Proto-Indo-European *h₁l̥h₁onbʰos, enlargement of *h₁elh₁én, ultimately from *h₁el-.

See also Dutch lam, German Lamm, Bavarian Lamperl, Danish lam, Swedish lamm, Finnish lammas, Scottish Gaelic lon (“elk”), Ancient Greek ἔλαφος (élaphos, “red deer”). More at elk.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /læm/
  • (æ-tensing) IPA^(key):

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æm

Noun

lamb (countable and uncountable, plural lambs or (both dialectal) lamber or lambren)

1. A young sheep.

   Synonym: sheepling

2. (obsolete) A young goat; a kid.
   • The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , 1611, →OCLC, Exodus 12:5: “Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats:”
3. (uncountable) The flesh of a lamb or sheep used as food.
4. (figuratively) A person who is meek, docile and easily led.
5. Lambskin.
   • 1934, Kay Boyle, My Next Bride, Virago, published 1986, page 8:

     They were as alike as prisoners, dressed in black silk waists and fitted skirts, with shawls of crimped black lamb across their shoulders.

6. A simple, unsophisticated person.
7. (finance, slang) One who ignorantly speculates on the stock exchange and is victimized.
8. (slang) A fan of American singer, songwriter, actress, and record producer Mariah Carey (born 1969).

   Holonym: Lambily

   Alternative form: Lamb

   • 2003, Bust, page 88:

     Part of me revels in the campiness of Mariah’s butterfly metaphors and puppies-and-kittens existence. […] But I also genuinely love her music, including this album. I’m one of her lambs.

   • 2010 February 15, Greg Kot, “Mimi cuts loose: Mariah Carey concert at Chicago Theatre shows that the diva can laugh at herself”, in Chicago Tribune, 163rd year, number 46, section 3, page 6:

     Her latest album, “Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel,” is her best work yet, a warmer and more subtle album that makes her more relatable to those of us who aren’t Mariah die-hards—or “lambs,” as she refers to them.

   • 2019 January 3, Rich Juzwiak, “In Praise of Their Diva”, in The New York Times, section D, page 1:

     This year, Ms. Carey debuted a new Las Vegas revue, and, to celebrate, a group of 36 “lambs,” mostly in their 30s and 40s, boarded a party bus and cruised the Vegas strip for about three hours.

   • 2020 February 25, Chris Azzopardi, “I Love You (But Do You Love Mariah Carey?)”, in The New York Times‎:

     But when I saw Mariah in Detroit last year during the Caution World Tour, I was a proud lamb in my tour T-shirt, my very adult body suddenly transformed into my 14-year-old self when she emerged onstage.

   • 2022, “Mariah Carey releases her exclusive Pride merchandise”, in WRMF‎:

     Pride Month begins June 1, and Mariah Carey is giving her lambs plenty of new clothes to celebrate.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:lamb.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

lamb (third-person singular simple present lambs, present participle lambing, simple past and past participle lambed)

1. (intransitive) Of a sheep, to give birth.
2. (transitive or intransitive) To assist (sheep) to give birth.

   The shepherd was up all night, lambing her young ewes.

Translations

Anagrams

• ALBM, BAML, BLAM, LBMA, balm, blam

Faroese

Etymology

From Old Norse lamb, from Proto-Germanic *lambaz.

Noun

lamb n (genitive singular lambs, plural lomb)

1. lamb (both the animal and meat)
2. kid (baby goat)
3. (playing cards, stýrivolt) seven of the chosen cards (trump seven)

Declension

Derived terms

• gimburlamb (female lamb)
• veðurlamb (male lamb)

Gothic

Romanization

lamb

1. Romanization of 𐌻𐌰𐌼𐌱

Icelandic

Etymology

From Old Norse lamb, from Proto-Germanic *lambaz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /lamp/
• Rhymes: -amp

Noun

lamb n (genitive singular lambs, nominative plural lömb)

1. a lamb

Declension

Derived terms

• launa lambið gráa
• ljúfur sem lamb
• vatna lömbum (compare the Old Norse krjúpa at keldu)

Middle English

Alternative forms

• lomb, lombe, loumbe, lambe, lom, lame, lamme

Etymology

From Old English lamb, from Proto-West Germanic *lamb, from Proto-Germanic *lambaz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /lam(b)/, /laːm(b)/, /lɔm(b)/, /lɔːm(b)/

Noun

lamb (plural lambren or lamber or lambes)

1. A lamb, its meat, or its skin.
2. A Christian believer.

Descendants

• English: lamb
• Scots: lam, lamb
• Yola: lhawm, lowem

References

• “lō̆mb, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology

From Old Norse lamb.

Noun

lamb n (definite singular lambet, definite singular dative lambe, indefinite plural lamb or lomb, definite plural lambi or lombi, definite plural dative lambom or lombom)

1. a lamb (young sheep); (pre-1938) alternative form of lam
2. (by extension, Christianity, figurative) Christ as sacrificial lamb

Inflection

Derived terms

• lambekjøt
• påskelamb (“Passover lamb, Paschal Lamb”)

Old English

Alternative forms

• lemb, lomb, lomber

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *lambaz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /lɑmb/

Noun

lamb n (nominative plural lambru)

1. lamb

Declension

West Saxon:

Anglian:

Descendants

• Middle English: lamb, lomb, lambe
  • English: lamb
  • Scots: lam, lamb

Old High German

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *lamb, see also Old Saxon lamb, Old English lamb, Old Norse lamb, Gothic 𐌻𐌰𐌼𐌱 (lamb).

Noun

lamb n

1. lamb

Declension

Descendants

• Middle High German: lamp, lam
  • Cimbrian: lamp
  • German: Lamm
  • Luxembourgish: Lamm
  • Vilamovian: łamm
  • Yiddish: לאַם (lam)

References

1. Köbler, Gerhard, Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, (6. Auflage) 2014
2. Joseph Wright, An Old High German Primer, Second Edition

Old Norse

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *lambaz.

Noun

lamb n (genitive lambs, plural lǫmb)

1. a lamb

Declension

Descendants

Old Saxon

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *lamb.

Noun

lamb n

1. lamb

Declension

Descendants

• Low German: Lamm