limbed

1. 1
   adjective

   Used after a descriptive word to show that something has limbs of a particular kind or quality.

   The long-limbed swimmer crossed the pool in just a few easy strokes.

   Critics praised the painter's elegant, loose-limbed figures.

   Note

   The working half of the word closes a compound instead of standing alone: long-limbed, loose-limbed, strong-limbed. The compound is hyphenated and behaves as a single adjective, whether it comes before a noun (a long-limbed swimmer) or after a verb (the figures were loose-limbed). Like its stand-alone partner, it describes a fixed quality rather than a degree, so comparison falls on the modifier, as in longer-limbed.

2. 2
   adjective

   Having limbs, such as arms, legs, wings, or similar projecting body parts.

   The newly described fossil was a fully limbed creature unlike today's snakes.

   Limbed vertebrates evolved the ability to walk and climb on land.

   Oppositelimbless

   Note

   An old formation, not a modern coinage. Middle English ilimed joined the prefix i-, which formed adjectives and past participles, to lim, a word for any member of the body: an organ, an extremity, even a follower or liegeman. Standing alone, it simply marks that limbs are present, so it does not take degrees. Nothing is more limbed than another. Put a modifier in front and it becomes the compound-forming use.

3. 3
   verb

   Simple past tense and past participle of limb.

   The crew limbed the fallen pine before loading it onto the truck.

   She limbed the maple to let more light into the garden.

   Note

   A regular past form with a quirk: the transitive verb limb points in opposite directions, meaning both to strip off limbs or branches and to supply them. A crew that limbed a pine removed its branches, while a figure limbed by its maker has gained them. Among fighters, an opponent limbed has been thoroughly beaten. The passive also shares its spelling with the plain adjective, so context decides.

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