Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a simpleton, a fool, esp. one easily cheated of their money; also attrib.

1617		J. Taylor ‘Iacke a Lent’ in Works (1869) I 116: It is Lents intent, that the innocent Lambe and the Essex calfe, should suruiue to weare the crest of their Ancestors: that the Goose, the Buzzard, the Widgeon, and the Woodcocke, may walke fearlesse in any market Towne.
1669		Nicker Nicked in Harleian Misc. II (1809) 109: When a young gentleman or apprentice comes into this school of virtue unskilled in the quibbles and devices there practised, they call him a lamb; then a rook (who is properly the wolf) follows him close and [...] gets all his money, and then they smile and say, ‘The lamb is bitten’.
1674		C. Cotton Compleat Gamester 8: They can discover some unexperienc’d young gentleman [...] that is come to this School of Virtue, being unskill’d in the quibbles and devices there being practised; these they call Lambs, or Colls.
1833		Satirist (London) 5 May 13/2: It being hinted to her the other day that she would be fleeced, she added, ‘I am not a sheep.’ ‘No,’ was the reply; ‘but lambs are sometimes entrapped’.
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 12 Feb. n.p.: He partakes of all the passive qualities of the lamb, at least in his researches after mutton.
1874		M. Clarke Term of His Natural Life (1897) 214: ‘Fast’ society, where animals turn into birds, where a wolf becomes a rook, and a lamb a pigeon.
1879		London Life 19 July 8/2: You must be indeed a lamb to entertain such absurd ideas.
1882		A. Trumble Mysteries of N.Y. 57: One [mock auction hoax] bore the appropriate title of ‘The Golden Fleece’, the public supplying the lambs.
1885		Aberdeen Eve. Exp. 4 Aug. n.p.: Mr Fresh (the silly ‘bloke’), / Who does his cash in Wall Street soak, / And goes home later, flat-dead broke — That’s a lamb.
1895		J. Caminada Twenty-Five Years of Detective Life I 367: They immediately proceeded to post a staff of ‘lambs’ round the door to resist any effort on the part of the police to enter.
1905		Bulletin (Sydney) 19 Oct. 15/1: Did yer never spend an evenin’ waitin’ fer a lamb ter shout, / Or ’angin’ round the Palace till the Gaiety come out?
1908		Sun. Times (Perth) 29 Nov. 1/1: A well-known Flat booky’s poker parlour is known as the ‘Shearing Shed’ [and] the boss invites all lambs to come in and be shorn.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Dec. 30/4: [M]any came out of curiosity, expecting to see a roaring spree, with Jimmy for the lamb.
1926		Wood & Goddard Dict. Amer. Sl.
1932		R. Fisher Conjure-Man Dies 273: Aw man, quit talkin’ lamb-yap.
1941		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam Star-News 22 Nov. 14: A square ain’t nothing but a Lane and a Lane ain’t nothing but a Rum and a Rum ain’t nothing but a Perfect Lamb.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1967		E. Shepard Doom Pussy 231: They invited the ‘lamb’ to sit in. We played [poker] for the whole seven-hour trip.

2. a prostitute.

1835		‘No Meat Like Mutton’ in Fanny Hill’s Bang-Up Reciter in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 312: You cannot tell the number of half the lambs you meet! / You may have your choice of fat or lean, they’ll never take affront, / And suit your taste and pocket with a prime bit of — mutton!
1850		Man of Pleasure’s Illus. Pocket-book n.p.: FRENCH INTRODUCING HOUSES. [...] The neighbourhood of Leicester Square [...] Covent Garden; [...] Fitzroy Square — are localities were these importers of French mutton, lamb, and chicken set up their shambles.
[1861		N.E. Police Gaz. (Boston, MA) 5 Oct. 8/3: Banner, with motto ‘Sheep’s meat too good for niggers’].

3. (US) a young woman, a girlfriend.

1848		Boston Blade (Boston, MA) 10 June n.p.: I’m Mose’s prize lamb, and nothin’ shorter.
1883		Nat. Police Gaz. 20 Oct. 6/4: [headline] Rev. Myers ‘Skips’ with a Lamb’ [...] the elopement of the Rev. W.H. Myers, a Methodist clergyman [...] with Mrs Ralph Price, the young wife of a paperhanger.

4. a rough, a thug, orig. recruited from followers of the local prizefighter William Thomson, aka ‘Bendigo’ (1811-80).

1866		Sportsman 3 Nov. 2/1: Notes on News [...] The Sheffielders, following the role of the Nottingham ‘lambs,’ afterwards so charmingly illustrated by the rowdies of the London ring [etc].
1876		C. Hindley Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack 260: One of two Nottingham ‘lambs,’ i.e., roughs, who were looking on.

5. ext. of sense 1, a womaniser, or one who poses as such.

1915

Hargreaves & Godfrey [perf. Ella Shields] ‘Oh, the baa-baa-baa lambs’ 🎵 Twenty up to forty, looking a trifle naughty / Up comes Mary, then all the lambs you'll find / Going baa-baa, baa-baa and wagging their tails behind.

6. (mainly US prison, also kid lamb) a young homosexual boy, esp. one who accompanies a tramp.

1923		N. Anderson Hobo 99: The term ‘punk’ [...] had a special meaning at one time but is beginning to have a milder and more general use and the term ‘lamb’ is taking its place.
1934		T. Minehan Boy and Girl Tramps of America (1976) 143: I have seen wolves and their little ‘lambs’ or ‘fairies,’ and their relationship seems to be one of mutual satisfaction.
1941		G. Legman ‘Lang. of Homosexuality’ Appendix VII in Henry Sex Variants.
1963		L.F. Freed Crime in S. Afr. 106: an ‘Angelina’, a ‘chicken’, or a ‘lamb’ is a boy who travels around with an older tramp for homosexual purposes.
1965		Ward & Kassebaum Women’s Prison 191: [ref. to male prisons] Some wolves [...] ply the prospective punk, kid or lamb [...] with gifts and favors.
1979		Maledicta III:2 221: Only a criminal might know that a lamb is a chicken who is the victim of some kid-simple prison pedicator, a rapacious jocker or wolf.

7. (US black) an innocent.

1944		D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 25: A Lamb’s unhipped beg on Santa’s fine sack.
a.1948		(con. early 1930s) C. McKay Harlem Glory (1990) 52: Oh, jest listen to the lamb [...] why, man, every time that woman looks at you I sees love shining in her eyes.
1957		M. Shulman Rally Round the Flag, Boys! (1959) 11: The New York commuters, also called the lambs, or the pigeons, or the patsies.

8. (US prison) in non-sexual use of sense 6, one who accepts prison rules without argument or challenge.

1992

P. Earley Hot House 240: ‘You got to learn how to turn off that television or else you will sit all day in front of it and forget what prison is all about. You become a lamb, which is exactly what the administration wants’.