Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To escape, as from prison.
  • noun Flight, especially from the law.
  • intransitive verb To give a thorough beating to; thrash.
  • intransitive verb To strike; wallop.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An obsolete spelling of lamb.
  • To thrash; beat.
  • noun An abbreviation of Lamentations.
  • noun In weaving, a leaf or heddle.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb Obs. or Low To beat soundly; to thrash.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The twenty-third letter of the Arabic alphabet, ﻝ. It is preceded by ك and followed by م.
  • noun Used in the expression on the lam to mean that a person is fleeing law enforcement, possibly in hiding.
  • verb transitive To beat or thrash

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb give a thrashing to; beat hard
  • noun a rapid escape (as by criminals)
  • verb flee; take to one's heels; cut and run

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Origin unknown.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Probably of Scandinavian origin; akin to Old Norse lemja, to cripple by beating, flog.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Arabic This definition is lacking an etymology or has an incomplete etymology. You can help Wiktionary by giving it a proper etymology.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old Norse lemja.

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