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7 cze 2024 · Learn how the phrase "on the lam" came from pickpockets' slang and evolved to mean avoiding capture by police. Find out the possible origins of the word "lam" and some alternative expressions for escaping.
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According to the Online Etymological Dictionary, lam means: "flight," as in on the lam, 1897, from a U.S. slang verb meaning "to run off" (1886), of uncertain origin, perhaps somehow from the first element of lambaste , which was used in British student slang for "beat" since 1590s.
Learn the slang phrase "on the lam" means "to escape" and its origin from Old Norse. See examples of how to use it in different contexts and synonyms for "on the lam".
11 paź 2024 · “On the lam” is an idiom that means someone is running away or fleeing from the authorities, often to avoid arrest or legal consequences. It refers to being on the run, typically used in the context of criminals or fugitives trying to escape law enforcement.
3 cze 2022 · Meaning. The expression "on the lam" means that you're on the run from the law. It refers to an escaped convict or someone with a warrant for their arrest by bounty hunters or the police. "Lam" had the original meaning of "to strike."
If someone is on the lam, they are trying to escape or hide from someone, for example the police or an enemy. He is currently on the lam, wanted for the sale and trafficking of cocaine. A Rhode Island banker accused of stealing millions has turned himself in after months on the lam.
1 mar 2014 · It may be from a Scandinavian source — dictionaries mention the Old Norse lemja, literally to lame but usually meaning to give a beating, and the Danish and Norwegian lamme, to paralyse. When lam came into English in the late 1500s it retained the Old Norse sense of beating soundly or thrashing.
