Word.ws English Dictionary

hirple

UK/ˈhɜː.pəl/

hirple verb: to walk with a limp, to drag a limb, to walk lamely; to move with a gait somewhere between walking and crawling.

Verb

hirple (third-person singular simple present hirples, present participle hirpling, simple past and past participle hirpled)

  1. (Northern, Scotland, UK, intransitive) To walk with a limp, to drag a limb, to walk lamely; to move with a gait somewhere between walking and crawling.
    • I saw the hurcheon and the hare
      In hidlings hirpling here and there,1597, Alexander Montgomery, The Cherrie and the Slae
    • Get you on that bicycle and hurry on, and I'll hirple after you the best I can.1922, John Buchan, Huntingtower
    Synonyms:
    hobble, hurple

Noun

hirple (plural hirples)

  1. (Scotland) A limp.

Examples of hirple in a sentence

  • A woman hirpled along the corridor towards them with the aid of a walking frame.2015, Kate Atkinson, A God in Ruins, →ISBN, page 136:
  • Around lunchtime he hirpled down the corridor to the Gents.2022, Liam McIlvanney, The Heretic, page 513:

Synonyms of hirple

Forms of hirple

Verb
third-person singular presenthirples
present participlehirpling
past participlehirpled
pasthirpled
Noun
pluralhirples

Origin of hirple

A word of unknown origin, first recorded in Scots sources from the late fifteenth century; but probably from Old Norse herpast (“to suffer from cramp”) the middle voice verb. Compare the Icelandic herpa (“to contract, to draw together”).

Words that rhyme with hirple

Questions about hirple

What does hirple mean?
Hirple means to walk with a limp, to drag a limb, to walk lamely; to move with a gait somewhere between walking and crawling.
How do you use hirple in a sentence?
A woman hirpled along the corridor towards them with the aid of a walking frame.
What part of speech is hirple?
Hirple can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce hirple?
Hirple is pronounced /ˈhɜː.pəl/ (UK).
What is the past tense of hirple?
The past tense of hirple is hirpled.

Words near hirple in the dictionary

  1. Hiroshiman
  2. Hiroshimans
  3. hiroshimite
  4. Hirota
  5. Hirotas
  6. hirple
  7. hirpled
  8. hirples
  9. hirpling
  10. hirquine
  11. hirrawem

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hirple (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “hirple.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hirple. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.