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lame

adj
/leɪm/UK

Etymology

From Middle English lame, from Old English lama (“lame”), from Proto-West Germanic *lam, from Proto-Germanic *lamaz (“lame”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃lemH- (“to tire; to break”).

  1. derived from *h₃lemH-✻ — “to tire; to break”
  2. inherited from *lamaz✻ — “lame”
  3. inherited from *lam✻
  4. inherited from lama — “lame”
  5. inherited from lame

Definitions

  1. Unable to walk properly because of a problem with one's feet or legs.

    • With the years, this horse has little by little gone lame.
    • Alone, alone, to where he sits, The Shadow cloak’d from head to foot Who keeps the keys of all the creeds, ⁠I wander, often falling lame, And looking back to whence I came, Or on to where the pathway leads; […]

  2. Hobbling

    Hobbling; limping; inefficient; imperfect.

    • a lame endeavour
    • O, most lame and impotent conclusion![…]

  3. Unconvincing or unbelievable.

    • He had a really lame excuse for missing the birthday party.
  4. ›+ 7 more definitions

    1. Uncool, uninteresting, or unfunny.

      • He kept telling these extremely lame jokes all night.

    2. To cause (a person or animal) to become lame.

      • And if you don't want to lame your horse, you must look sharp and get them [stones stuck in hooves] out quickly.
      • Now her soul felt lamed in itself. It was her hope that was struck.

    3. A stupid or undesirable person.

      • You lames tryna clone my style and run wit it.

    4. A thin layer or plate of material, as in certain kinds of armor.

    5. A set of joined overlapping metal plates.

    6. A kitchen tool for scoring bread dough before baking.

    7. A surname.

The neighborhood

Derived

crutches for lame ducks, help a lame dog over a stile, lamage, lameass, lamebrain, lamebrained, lame duck, lame-head, lamehead, lamely, lameness, lame-o, lameo, lameoid, lamesauce, lame sickness, lamester, lamestream, lame-stream, lametastic, lamewad, lamish, unlame

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at lame. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01lame02limping03limps04limp05lamely

A definitional loop anchored at lame. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

5 hops · closes at lame

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA