lame ducks
lame ducks is the plural of lame duck.
lame ducks is the third-person singular simple present indicative of lame duck.
Meaning of lame duck
Noun
lame duck (plural lame ducks)
- A person or thing that is helpless, inefficient, or disabled.
- Thus is happens, that, when a considerable loss arises from such contract, the principal on whole behalf it was made, refuses to fulfil it; in this case, the loss falls upon the broker, without remedy; and if he does not fulfil the contract in default of his prinicipal, he foreits his credit and...1763 January, anonymous author, The Gentleman's and London Magazine, page 288
- 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.
- A person who cannot fulfill their contracts.
- Synonyms:
- duck
- A server that continues to serve ongoing requests while refusing new ones, allowing for graceful shutdown.
Questions about lame ducks
- What is lame ducks the plural of?
- Lame ducks is the plural of lame duck.
Words near lame ducks in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: lame ducks (page history and authors); lame duck (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.
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Cite this entry: “lame ducks.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lame_ducks. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.