Word.ws English Dictionary

limp

/lɪmp/

limp verb: to walk lamely, as if favoring one leg. Also the acronym of Louis XIV.

Verb (1)

limp (third-person singular simple present limps, present participle limping, simple past and past participle limped)

  1. (intransitive) To walk lamely, as if favoring one leg.
    • Dirk Kuyt sandwiched a goal in between Carroll's double as City endured a night of total misery, with captain Carlos Tevez limping off early on with a hamstring strain that puts a serious question mark over his participation in Saturday's FA Cup semi-final against Manchester United at Wembley.2011 April 11, Phil McNulty, “Liverpool 3 - 0 Man City”, in BBC Sport
  2. (figuratively, intransitive) To travel with a malfunctioning system of propulsion.
    • The bomber limped home on one engine.
  3. (figuratively, intransitive) To move or proceed irregularly.
    • limping verses
    • The business limped through the recession
  4. (intransitive, slang) To call, particularly in an unraised pot pre-flop.

Noun (1)

limp (plural limps)

  1. An irregular, jerky or awkward gait.
    • She walks with a limp.
  2. A scraper for removing poor ore or refuse from the sieve.

Adjective

limp (comparative limper, superlative limpest)

  1. Flaccid; flabby, resembling flesh.
  2. Lacking stiffness; floppy, flimsy.
    • a limp rope
  3. Soft; weak, especially physically.
    • Another line-out was stolen, and when the ball was sent left Clerc stepped and spun through limp challenges from Wilkinson, Chris Ashton and Foden to dive over and make it 11-0.2011 October 8, Tom Fordyce, “Rugby World Cup 2011: England 12-19 France”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 08 Mar 2025
  4. (slang) Not erect.
  5. (slang) Not having an erection.

Verb (2)

limp (third-person singular simple present limps, present participle limping, simple past and past participle limped)

  1. (intransitive, stative) To be inadequate or unsatisfactory.

Noun (2)

limp (plural limps)

  1. A scraper of board or sheet-iron shaped like half the head of a small cask, used for scraping the ore off the sieve in the operation of hand-jigging.

Verb (3)

limp (third-person singular simple present limps, present participle limping, simple past lamp or limped, past participle lump or limped)

  1. (intransitive, obsolete) To happen; befall; chance.
  2. (obsolete, transitive) To come upon; meet.

Also used as

limp is also the acronym of Louis XIV.

limp meaning in Tagalog, Arabic, Indonesian and Persian

limp in Tagalog

to walk lamely
humingkod

limp in Arabic

to walk lamely
عَرَجَ ʕaraja

limp in Indonesian

to walk lamely
pincang

limp in Persian

to walk lamely
شلیدن šalidan

Examples of limp in a sentence

  • The National Gay Task Force is an excellent example... drawing on the support of gay people in fifty states, yet having to limp along on $65,000 a year budgets.1976 August 28, John C. Lawrence, “H.C.H.S Support”, in Gay Community News, volume 4, number 9, page 5:
  • And so we limped along for another month or two, pretending we still had a reason to be together.2012, The Onion Book of Known Knowledge, page 121:

All 40 example sentences with limp

Forms of limp

Verb
third-person singular presentlimps
present participlelimping
past participlelimped
pastlimped
pastlamp
past participlelump
Noun
plurallimps
Adjective
comparativelimper
superlativelimpest
Phrase
alternative formLimp

Past tense of limp: limped

Origin of limp

From Middle English limpen (“to fall short”), from Old English limpan, from Proto-West Germanic *limpan, from Proto-Germanic *limpaną (“to hang down”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)lemb-, *(s)lembʰ- (“to hang loosely, hang limply”). Cognate with Low German lumpen (“to limp”), Middle High German limpfen (“to hobble, limp”), dialectal German lampen (“to hang down loosely”), Icelandic limpa (“limpness, weakness”).

From Middle English *limp, *lemp, from Old English *lemp (recorded only in compound lemphealt (“limping”), from Proto-West Germanic *limpan, from Proto-Germanic *limpaną (“to hang down”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)lemb-, *(s)lembʰ- (“to hang loosely, hang limply”). Cognate with German lampecht (“flaccid, limp”), Icelandic lempinn, lempiligur (“pliable, gentle”). See above.

From Middle English limpen, from Old English limpan (“to happen, occur, exist, belong to, suit, befit, concern”). Cognate with Scots limp (“to chance to be, come”), Middle Dutch limpen (“to happen”), Middle Low German gelimpen (“to moderate, treat mildly”), Middle High German limfen (“to suit, become”).

Words formed from limp

Phrases with limp

Words that rhyme with limp

4 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about limp

What does limp mean?
Limp means to walk lamely, as if favoring one leg.
What is limp in Tagalog?
Limp in Tagalog is humingkod. See Limp meaning in Tagalog.
How do you use limp in a sentence?
The National Gay Task Force is an excellent example... drawing on the support of gay people in fifty states, yet having to limp along on $65,000 a year budgets.
What part of speech is limp?
Limp can be a verb, a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce limp?
Limp is pronounced /lɪmp/.
What is the past tense of limp?
The past tense of limp is limped.

Words near limp in the dictionary

  1. limousine liberals
  2. limousinelike
  3. limousines
  4. limousins
  5. Limoux
  6. limp
  7. limp dick
  8. limp dicks
  9. limp in
  10. limp of the wrist
  11. limp reraise

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: limp (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-limp.ogg.

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