different between limb vs limbmeal

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /l?m/
• Rhymes: -?m
• Homophones: limn, Lymm

Etymology 1

From Middle English lyme, lim, from Old English lim (“limb, branch”), from Proto-Germanic *limuz (“branch, limb”). Cognate with Old Norse limr (“limb”). The silent -b began to appear in the late 1500s.

Noun

limb (plural limbs)

1. A major appendage of human or animal, used for locomotion (such as an arm, leg or wing).

   • Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, comprised the furniture of this roof-garden, with […] on one of the copings a row of four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dust from which gnarled and rusty stalks thrust themselves up like withered elfin limbs.

2. A branch of a tree.

   Synonym: bough

3. (archery) The part of the bow, from the handle to the tip.
4. An elementary piece of the mechanism of a lock.
5. A thing or person regarded as a part or member of, or attachment to, something else.
6. (botany) The part of a corolla beyond the throat.
7. Short for limb of Satan (“a wicked or mischievous child”).

Derived terms

• go out on a limb
• life and limb

Translations

Verb

limb (third-person singular simple present limbs, present participle limbing, simple past and past participle limbed)

1. (transitive) To remove the limbs from (an animal or tree).

2. (transitive) To supply with limbs.
   • 1859, Henry D. Thoreau, Walden

     Man was not made so large limbed and robust but that he must seek to narrow his world and wall in a space such as fitted him.

Synonyms

• delimb

Translations

Etymology 2

From Latin limbus (“border”).

Noun

limb (plural limbs)

1. (astronomy) The apparent visual edge of a celestial body.

   solar limb

2. (on a measuring instrument) The graduated edge of a circle or arc.
3. (botany) The border or upper spreading part of a monopetalous corolla, or of a petal or sepal; blade.

Translations

See also

Anagrams

• blim

English

Alternative forms

• limb-meal
• limb meal

Etymology

From Middle English lymmele, limmel, from Old English limm?lum (“limbmeal, limb by limb”), equivalent to limb +? -meal.

Adverb

limbmeal (not comparable)

1. (archaic) Into pieces; limb from limb.
   • c. 1609, William Shakespeare, Cymbeline, Act II, Scene 4,^[1]

     O, that I had her here, to tear her limb-meal!

   • 1677, Edward Bury, England’s Bane, or, The Deadly Danger of Drunkenness, London: Thomas Parkhurst, p. 16,^[2]

     […] they deal with Christ as a Kennel of Hounds do with an Hare, pluck him to pieces, wound and tear him, what in them lies, limb meal, neither his Blood, nor his Wounds, nor his Head, nor his Heart, nor any other part shall escape, and they even dare Vengeance it self […]

   • 1890, John Payne (translator), The Novels of Matteo Bandello Bishop of Agen, London: The Villon Society, Volume 5, Part 3, Story 24, pp. 323-324,^[3]

     Such was the end of that vile and wicked woman, worthy of a more cruel death and to be torn of dogs limbmeal.