lam into

English

Verb

lam into (third-person singular simple present lams into, present participle lamming into, simple past and past participle lammed into)

1. (informal, dated) To attack physically.
   • 1887, Benvenuto Cellini, chapter 29, in John Addington Symonds, transl., Autobiography‎^[1]:

     Then I drove the whole lot forth, mother and daughter, lamming into them with fist and foot.

   • 1900, Henry Lawson, “Andy Page's Rival”, in On the Track‎^[2]:

     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.

2. (informal) To attack verbally.
   • 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:

     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!

   • 1954, Saul Bellow, “The Gonzaga Manuscripts”, in Mosby's Memoirs and Other Stories, Penguin, published 1984, page 120:

     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.

   • 1968, Hansard, 16 July, 1968, "Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers' Associations Report," [3]

     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.

Synonyms

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

Anagrams

• Tolimán, Tomalin