lam

Etymology 1

From Middle English lamen, lemen, from Old English lemian and Old Norse lemja; both from Proto-Germanic *lamjaną.

verb

1. (transitive, informal) To beat or thrash.
   1930, Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, Mule Bone, Act II, Scene 2, in The Collected Works of Langston Hughes, Volume 5: The Plays to 1942: Mulatto to The Sun Do Move, edited by Leslie Catherine Sanders, Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2002, p. 102, An' fo' I knowed it, he done picked up that bone an' lammed me ovah de head wid it.
   They lammed each other on the head with great, clumsy stone hammers; but their skulls were so hard that the hammers bounced off again […] 1953, C. S. Lewis, The Silver Chair, Collins, published 1998, Chapter
2. (intransitive, dated, slang) To flee or run away.
   [Gangster running away:] Batman and Robin! Let's lam! 1947, Bill Finger, World's Finest Comics #30, "The Penny Plunderers!", p. 4

noun

1. (slang) flight, escape
   on the lam

Etymology 2

From Arabic لَام (lām), the name of the letter ل (l).

noun

1. The twenty-third letter of the Arabic alphabet, ل (l). It is preceded by ك (k) and followed by م (m).