Lamb: English spelling preserves the… | etymologist.ai
lamb
/læm/·noun·4th century CE — Gothic lamb in Wulfila's Bible translation; Old English lamb attested from c. 700 CE in glossaries and religious texts·Established
Origin
OldEnglish lamb, from Proto-Germanic *lambaz, with Gothic lamb as earliest attested form. The final b wasonce pronounced — it fell silent c. 13th–14th century along with climbandcomb. PIE origins remain uncertain; possibly a Germanic substrate word with no clear IE cognates.
Definition
A young sheep, typically in its first year — from Old English lamb with a once-pronounced final b, Proto-Germanic *lambaz, with uncertain PIE origins that may point to a pre-IE substrate.
The Full Story
Old EnglishPre-700 CE to 1100 CEwell-attested
The word 'lamb' descends from OldEnglish lamb, meaning a young sheep, from Proto-Germanic *lambaz. This root is shared across the Germanic family: Gothic lamb, Old Norse lamb, Old High German lamb (Modern German Lamm), Dutch lam. The PIE origin is uncertain — unlike core vocabulary with clear IE cognates, *lambaz appears confined
Did you know?
Englishspelling preserves the ghost of a sound that died 700 years ago. Old English speakers pronounced the b in lamb — it was a real consonant cluster -mb, both sounds articulated. By the 13th–14th century, cluster simplification silenced the b across the board: climb, comb, dumb, thumb
the b in 'climb', 'comb', 'dumb', 'numb', 'thumb'. Spelling was already fixed through manuscript tradition, so the letter was preserved even as it became silent. German Lamm shows the same root but underwent cluster simplification differently, geminating the m.
In Anglo-Saxon Christianity, the word carried profound symbolic weight: though Latin texts used Agnus Dei, Old English religious writings employed the vernacular lamb to render this theology accessible. The lamb/mutton divide parallels ox/beef: the Anglo-Saxon farmer tends the lamb, the Norman lord eats the mutton. Key roots: *lambaz (Proto-Germanic: "lamb, young sheep — the terminus of secure reconstruction; confined to Germanic, possibly a substrate word").