# limb

Pronunciation: say "LIM" /lɪm/

## Noun

1. A major appendage of the body, such as an arm, leg, or wing, used for movement.
   - Simple: An arm, leg, or wing: a main body part that helps a body move.
   - _Surgeons worked through the night to save the injured limb._
   - _The newborn giraffe stood up on its long, shaky limbs within an hour._
2. A main branch of a tree, growing out from the trunk.
   - Simple: A large branch growing out from the trunk of a tree.
   - _The arborist sawed off a dead limb hanging over the house._
   - _Strong winds tore several limbs from the elm overnight._
3. A person or thing regarded as a part or member of, or attachment to, something larger.
   - Simple: A person or thing seen as a part of a larger group or body.
   - _The new agency operates as a limb of the federal government._
   - _Critics dismissed the newspaper as a mere limb of the ruling party._
4. The part of a bow extending from the handle to the tip.
   - Simple: The upper or lower bending part of a bow used in archery.
   - _She replaced the worn limb on her recurve bow before the tournament._
   - _Both limbs flex to store energy when the string is drawn back._

## Verb

5. To lop off a tree's branches, or sever an animal's limbs from its body.
   - Simple: To cut all the branches off a tree, or the arms and legs off an animal.
   - _Crews must limb the storm-damaged trees before hauling away the trunks._
   - _After the storm, the crew limbed the fallen oak and hauled the trunk away._

## Other meanings

- (verb) To thoroughly defeat an opponent in a fistfight.
- (noun) The apparent visual edge of a celestial body, such as the sun, moon, or a planet.
- (noun) The border or upper spreading part of a flower's corolla, petal, or sepal; the blade.
- (noun) The graduated edge of a circle or arc on a measuring instrument.
- (verb) To provide something with limbs.
- (noun) Ellipsis of limb of Satan: a naughty, troublesome child.
- (noun) One of the basic working components inside a lock's mechanism.

## Origin

From Middle English 'lyme' or 'lim', from Old English 'lim' meaning 'limb, branch', going back through Proto-West Germanic to Proto-Germanic 'limuz' ('branch, limb'), and related to Old Norse 'limr'. The silent 'b', which has no etymological reason, first appeared in the late 1500s.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/limb (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).