AAAmerican Accent US
Illustration: the history of the word lamb
lambsilent
A sound people stopped saying

Why is the B in lamb silent?

In Old English, lamb was said with a final B. Later Middle English reduced -mb to -m, so lamb now rhymes with ham. Here is the story of the B.

Then · Old English

lamb

said like LAHMB

later Middle English (1300s-1400s)↓

Now · American English

lamb/læm/

said LAM

The story

Lamb has hardly changed its spelling in over a thousand years: Old English wrote it lamb, just as we do. What changed is the sound. In Old English the final B was pronounced — the word ended "-mb", with the lips closing for M and then releasing a B. German and Dutch, which share the word, say Lamm and lam.

In later Middle English, speakers reduced a word-final -mb to plain M. The B was silent from then on in lamb, comb, climb, womb and plumb. The letter stayed, because spelling had settled before the sound was lost.

A good rule of thumb: an -mb at the very end of a word is always silent in modern English — and it usually stays silent when an ending is added (lambing, climber, plumber).

How the word changed

  1. 1

    Old English (before 1100)

    lamb

    Final B pronounced. Cousin of German Lamm.

  2. 2

    Later Middle English (1300s-1400s)

    lamb

    Final -mb reduces to -m.

  3. 3

    Modern English

    lamb

    LAM — the spelling is unchanged since Old English.

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Questions people ask

+Was the B in lamb ever pronounced?

Yes. In Old English the word ended with a real -mb. Later Middle English reduced final -mb to -m.

+Why are there silent Bs in lamb, comb and climb?

All three once ended in a pronounced -mb, which English simplified to -m in later Middle English. The spelling kept the B.

More words with a story

combKOHM

Comb comes from Old English camb, an ancient word for "tooth", and its B was once pronounced. Here is how the B went silent and the vowel moved.

thumbTHUM

Unlike lamb and comb, the B in thumb was never pronounced. Old English said þūma — the B was added in the late 1200s by analogy with other -mb words.

debtDET

English borrowed debt from French as dette, with no B. Scholars added the B later to show off its Latin root, debitum. It was never pronounced.

doubtDOWT

Doubt was spelled doute in Middle English, with no B. Renaissance scholars added one to match Latin dubitare — but English never pronounced it.

Part of

Why is the B in lamb silent?