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lame duck

noun

Etymology

Equivalent to lame + duck. First use appears c. 1761, in the London Evening Post. Derived from the situation in which a person who had defaulted in the London Stock Exchange was said to waddle out of Exchange Alley like a lame duck. Verbal form first appears c. 1910.

  1. derived from *dwōg-✻
  2. derived from *dōkaz✻
  3. derived from *dōk✻
  4. derived from *dōc✻
  5. derived from doeck
  6. borrowed from doek
  7. formed as lame duck — “lame + duck”

Definitions

  1. A person or thing that is helpless, inefficient, or disabled.

    • Reflecting on this in our 800th issue seven years ago, RAIL said the broad government view in 1981 was that BR [British Rail] was a lame duck.

  2. An elected official who has lost the recent election or is not eligible for reelection…

    An elected official who has lost the recent election or is not eligible for reelection and is marking time until leaving office.

    • Congressman Jones was a lame duck and did not vote on many issues that were important to his constituents.
    • This is a lame duck administration, and if it is going to pass out political favors worth multimillions of dollars per year, it must move.
    • The “lame duck” Johnson Administration, in its final fortnight in office, grappled last week with a diplomatic hot potato in the form of the latest Soviet proposal for a “just and lasting” Middle East peace settlement.

  3. A person who cannot fulfill their contracts.

  4. ›+ 2 more definitions

    1. A server that continues to serve ongoing requests while refusing new ones, allowing for…

      A server that continues to serve ongoing requests while refusing new ones, allowing for graceful shutdown.

    2. To behave in the manner of a lame duck.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for lame duck. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

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