take it on the lam
To escape.
They didn't take it on the lam weirdly inside a cloud the way Clevinger had done.
lam
/læm/
noun 6verb 2name 1
Collocations
3VERB + LAM
let's, said
PREP.
on, since
ADV.
ever
Definitions
verb
1
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 […]
2
To flee or run away.
[Gangster running away:] Batman and Robin! Let's lam!
[…]and she was so mad and so down deep vindictive that she reported to the police some false trumped-up hysterical crazy charge, and Dean had to lam from Hoboken.
noun
1
A flight or escape.
on the lam
noun
1
The twenty-third letter of the Arabic alphabet, ل (l). It is preceded by ك (k) and followed by م (m).
Thesaurus
Idioms & Phrases
Example Bank
601
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
Wiktionary02
They lammed each other on the head with great, clumsy stone hammers; but their skulls were so hard that the hammers bounced off again […]
Wiktionary03
[Gangster running away:] Batman and Robin! Let's lam!
Wiktionary04
on the lam
Wiktionary05
He escaped from prison thirty years ago and has been on the lam ever since.
Tatoeba · #114715306
She's on the lam.
Tatoeba · #6575998Usage Notes
i Register
In some senses, lam is marked as informal, dated, slang. Watch for register when choosing this word.
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