Limb
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limb¹
- /lɪm/
Sounds like limn, Lymm · Rhymes with -ɪm
Where it comes from
From Middle English lyme, lim, from Old English lim (“limb, branch”), from Proto-West Germanic *limu, from Proto-Germanic *limuz (“branch, limb”). Cognate with Old Norse limr (“limb”).
The spelling with the silent unetymological -b first arose in the late 1500s. Compare crumb.
noun limbs
- A major appendage of human or animal, used for locomotion (such as an arm, leg or wing). UUhoſe hands are made to gripe a warlike Lance— Their ſhoulders broad, for complet armour fit, Their lims more large and of a bigger ſize Than all the brats yſprong from Typhons loins:
- A branch of a tree.
- The part of the bow, from the handle to the tip.
- An elementary piece of the mechanism of a lock.
- A thing or person regarded as a part or member of, or attachment to, something else. That little limb of the devil has cheated the gallows.
- Ellipsis of limb of Satan (“a wicked or mischievous child”).limb of Satan
Similar: limb
verb limbs · limbing · limbed
- To remove the limbs from (an animal or tree). They limbed the felled trees before cutting them into logs.
- To supply with limbs. Innumerous living creatures , perfect forms , Limb'd and full grown: out of the ground uprose
- To thoroughly defeat an opponent in fisticuffs Brian limbed Roger over at the Beahive last night.
Similar: delimb
limb²
- /lɪm/
Sounds like limn, Lymm · Rhymes with -ɪm
Where it comes from
From Latin limbus (“border”).
noun limbs
- The apparent visual edge of a celestial body. the solar limb
- The graduated edge of a circle or arc.
- The border or upper spreading part of a monopetalous corolla, or of a petal or sepal; blade. The corolla limb of the moonvine Calonyction aculeatum is normally undivided.
Similar: limb
Limb³
Where it comes from
Variant of Lum.
proper noun Limbs
- A surname.
