limb1
/lɪm
/noun
1An arm or leg of a person or four-legged animal, or a bird’s wing: they got out, stretching their cramped limbs fractured limbs...
- Diaphanously winged and provided with limbs far too long and interestingly jointed to be in any way aerodynamic, it would appear to be some kind of mutant grasshopper, a cicada maybe?
- The ability to reduce area and span during the recovery stroke is intimately associated with the design of the propulsive limbs in small animals.
- The most common malformations are partial hind limbs, missing hind limbs, and missing toes.
Synonyms
arm, leg;
wing;
extremity, appendage, protuberance, projection
archaic member
2A large branch of a tree: the bare limbs of a high tree...
- Heavy snow and whipping winds can cause limbs from trees and shrubs to snap.
- Plopping down under the leafy limbs of the shade-producing tree, she
- They use a variety of foraging styles; most commonly they glean food from foliage while they climb about on tree limbs.
Synonyms
branch, bough
2.1A branch of a cross.
2.2Each half of an archery bow.Slip the loop of the bowstring over the nock and down the limb of the bow and tie the free end of the string to the other nock using a timber hitch, bowline or similar non-stressing knot....
- Using too few strands can over-stress the bow limbs and possibly break them.
3A projecting landform such as a spur of a mountain range, or each of two or more such projections as in a forked peninsula or archipelago.A quarter of a mile further on, at the eastern limb of the bay, the path descended steeply, zig-zagging across the cliff face to a stretch of beach to the east of Holland Point....
- The eastern limb of the Klip River emanates from the park and flows southward, into other areas of Soweto, until it reaches the Vaal River further in the South.
3.1A projecting section of a building.
Phrases
life and limb
out on a limb
tear someone limb from limb
Derivatives
limbed
[in combination]: long-limbed
limbless
/ adjective ...- War has many horrors: widows and orphans created, toddlers rendered limbless, death, destruction and massive waste.
- The images of suffering and mutilation, of limbless children and deformed young women, have been in the media for years, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.
- Scattered around the airstrip are some of Afghanistan's 10 million landmines, which every day leave innocent civilians limbless.
Origin
Old English lim (also in the sense 'organ or part of the body'), of Germanic origin.
There was no ‘b’ in limb until the 16th century: the earlier form was lim. Old English thuma similarly became thumb in the 13th century. Words such as Old English comb and dumb that had always ended in -b may have influenced the new spelling. The limb in out on a limb is the branch of a tree, a sense of the same word. The image conjured up is of someone clinging precariously to the end of a projecting branch, with nothing or no one to assist them in their difficult situation.
Rhymes
limb2
/lɪm/noun
1 Astronomy The edge of the disc of a celestial object, especially the sun or moon: the eastern limb of the moon...
- It occurs when the limb of the Moon just touches the apparent edge of the Sun in the sky, but does not overlap it.
- This image obtained by the Clementine satellite in 1994 shows the solar corona shining above the limb of the Moon.
- The event is a moderate partial eclipse with the Moon's northern limb dipping 15 arc-minutes into Earth's umbral shadow.
2 Botany The blade or broad part of a leaf or petal.As plants reached flowering maturity, the gender was noted and flower measurements were taken on petal limb, petal claw and calyx diameter.
2.1The spreading upper part of a tube-shaped flower.
3The graduated arc of a quadrant or other scientific instrument, used for measuring angles.
Origin
Late Middle English: from French limbe or Latin limbus 'hem, border'.