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, Autobiography, translated by John Addington Symonds, Chapter 29,

     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,

     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 H. G. Wells, "Æpyornis Island" in The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents,

     […] 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, 1984, p. 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,"

     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