Knud Leem (13 February 1697 - 27 February 1774) was a Norwegian priest and linguist. Knud Leem started the linguistic study of Sámi when he published a grammar book of it in 1748. Between 1756 and 1768, he also published two dictionaries.
Leem also headed the Seminarium Lapponicum for some time and worked together with Anders Porsanger.
Leem's grammar book shows an insight into Sámi that was not present in many other grammar books of the same era. Leem uses an inflection classification quite similar to the one being used nowadays. He also commented on consonant gradation, but more as a tendency than as a rule.
Knud Leem’s most important book is his topographic work, Beskrivelse over Finmarkens Lapper deres Tungemaal, Levemaade og forrige Afgudsdyrkelse, (1767), supplied with comments from bishop J.E. Gunnerus and a large historic-religious study written by E.J. Jessen-Schardeböll. Here Leem describes in both Danish and Latin the life and livings amongst the contemporary Lapp population, their garments, clothing and dress, food and cooking, hunting, fishing and sport equipments, shamanism and folk belief. A rich, but in many cases distorted, illustrated material, enlarges the value of the documentation about elderly Lappish culture, at the same time as the book is among the foremost topographic work published in the Nordic countries during the 18th Century.