English - Etymology 1
From Middle English _lim_, from Old English _lim_ (“limb, branch”), from Proto-Germanic _*limuz_ (“branch, limb”). Cognate with Old Norse _limr_ (“limb”). The silent _-b_ began to appear in the late 1500s.
NOUN
LIMB (_plural_ LIMBS)
* A major appendage of human or animal, used for locomotion (such as an arm, leg or wing).
* 1914, Louis Joseph Vance, _Nobody_, chapter I:
Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, comprised the furniture of this roof-garden, with […] on one of the copings a row of four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dust from which gnarled and rusty stalks thrust themselves up like withered elfin LIMBS.
* A branch of a tree.
* (archery) The part of the bow, from the handle to the tip.
* (botany) The border or upper spreading part of a monopetalous corolla, or of a petal or sepal; blade.
* (astronomy) The border or edge of the disk of a heavenly body, especially of the sun or moon.
* The graduated margin of an arc or circle in an instrument for measuring angles.
* 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.
* Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)
That little LIMB of the devil has cheated the gallows.
DERIVED TERMS
* go out on a limb
TRANSLATIONS
VERB
LIMB (_third-person singular simple present_ LIMBS, _present participle_ LIMBING, _simple past and past participle_ LIMBED)
* To remove the limbs from an animal or tree.
_They LIMBED the felled trees before cutting them into logs._
* To supply with limbs.
* Henry D. Thoreau, _Walden_:
_Man was not made so large LIMBED and robust but that he must seek to narrow his world and wall in a space such as fitted him._
(Can we find and add a quotation of Milton to this entry?)
SYNONYMS
* delimb
TRANSLATIONS
From Middle English lim, from Old English lim (“limb, branch”), from Proto-Germanic *limuz (“branch, limb”). Cognate with Old Norse limr
(“limb”). The silent -b began to appear in the late 1500s.
limb (plural limbs)
-
A major appendage of human or animal, used for locomotion (such as an
arm, leg or wing).
-
A branch of a tree.
-
(archery) The part of the bow, from the handle to the tip.
-
(botany) The border or upper spreading part of a monopetalous corolla, or of
a petal or sepal; blade.
-
(astronomy) The border or edge of the disk of a
heavenly body, especially of the sun or moon.
-
The graduated margin of an
arc or circle in an instrument for measuring angles.
-
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.
limb (third-person singular simple present limbs, present participle
limbing, simple past and past participle limbed)
-
To remove the limbs from an animal or tree.
-
They limbed the felled trees before cutting them into logs.
-
To supply with limbs.
-
(Can we find and add a quotation of Milton to this entry?)