Limb Meaning
/lɪm/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA major appendage of human or animal, used for locomotion (such as an arm, leg or wing).
nounA branch of a tree.
Sentence Examples
I'm not going out on a limb for you because you never helped me before.
Tom Skeleton was shaking and trembling in every limb.
CEFR Practice Quiz
After the accident, the doctor had to amputate his damaged ____ to save his life.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The cat carefully climbed out onto a thick ____ of the old oak tree to reach the bird's nest high above.
Word Origin & History
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.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"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:"
— c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act III, scene iii:
"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."
— 1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider […]”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A[ndrew] Munsey Company, […], published 1915, →OCLC, chapter I (Anarchy), pages 377–378:
"That little limb of the devil has cheated the gallows."
— 1814 July 7, [Walter Scott], Waverley; or, ’Tis Sixty Years Since. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC:
"Innumerous living creatures , perfect forms ,
Limb'd and full grown: out of the ground uprose"
— 1667, John Milton, “(please specify the page number)”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
"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."
— 1859, Henry D. Thoreau, Walden:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
After the accident, the doctor had to amputate his damaged ____ to save his life.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The cat carefully climbed out onto a thick ____ of the old oak tree to reach the bird's nest high above.