lam into

present singular third person lams into · participle present lamming into · participle past lammed into · past lammed into

1. datedinformalTo run into (someone); to have a chance encounter with (someone).

   Synonyms: lace into, light into, rip into, tear into

2. datedinformalTo attack physically.

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

   1887, Benvenuto Cellini, chapter 29, in John Addington Symonds, transl., Autobiography

   1 more example

   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.

   1900, Henry Lawson, “Andy Page's Rival”, in On the Track

3. informalTo attack verbally.

   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.

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

   2 more examples

   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!

   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

   1968, Hansard, 16 July, 1968, "Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers' Associations Report," https://web.archive.org/web/20190212095659/https://www.hansard-corpus.org/ 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.