Find the word definition

Crossword clues for maim

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
maim
verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ VERB
kill
▪ People did not go to a hospital to be cured but to be killed or maimed.
▪ Accidentally detonated, they kill or maim some 25, 000 people a year, mostly civilians.
▪ In what way is it a humanitarian act to kill, maim and wound innocent men, women and children?
▪ Every 22 minutes a man, woman or child is killed or maimed by a land mine.
▪ Both are prepared to kill or maim innocents in pursuit of a cause.
▪ Although no one was injured, the bombing plot had the potential to kill and maim many people, experts said.
▪ Several times he witnessed strokes which would have killed or maimed if they had been allowed to connect with flesh and bone.
▪ We kill, maim and terrorize other humans.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ A five-year-old girl was maimed in the bombing.
▪ Surely terrorists cannot believe that killing and maiming ordinary people is an achievement?
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ For hundreds of years after his death the sick and the maimed and the blind came for healing to his temples.
▪ He was going to maim me.
▪ His characters are frequently maimed, physically or psychologically.
▪ His oh-so-careful slimy grin that lashed out and maimed as much as a punch or a kick.
▪ The first was physical courage: the swaggering courtship of danger, injury, maiming or even death.
▪ The United Nations estimates that 800 people are killed by mines every month, and another 1, 200 are maimed.
▪ Where once he had been beautiful now he was hideous; where once he had been mighty, now he was maimed.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Maim

Maim \Maim\, n. [Written in law language maihem, and mayhem.] [OF. mehaing. See Maim, v.]

  1. The privation of the use of a limb or member of the body, by which one is rendered less able to defend himself or to annoy his adversary.

  2. The privation of any necessary part; a crippling; mutilation; injury; deprivation of something essential. See Mayhem.

    Surely there is more cause to fear lest the want there of be a maim than the use of it a blemish.
    --Hooker.

    A noble author esteems it to be a maim in history that the acts of Parliament should not be recited.
    --Hayward.

Maim

Maim \Maim\ (m[=a]m), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Maimed (m[=a]md);p. pr. & vb. n. Maiming.] [OE. maimen, OF. mahaignier, mehaignier, meshaignier, cf. It. magagnare, LL. mahemiare, mahennare; perh. of Celtic origin; cf. Armor. mac'ha[~n]a to mutilate, m[=a]c'ha to crowd, press; or cf. OHG. mang[=o]n to lack, perh. akin to E. mangle to lacerate. Cf. Mayhem.]

  1. To deprive of the use of a limb, so as to render a person in fighting less able either to defend himself or to annoy his adversary.

    By the ancient law of England he that maimed any man whereby he lost any part of his body, was sentenced to lose the like part.
    --Blackstone.

  2. To mutilate; to cripple; to injure; to disable; to impair.

    My late maimed limbs lack wonted might.
    --Spenser.

    You maimed the jurisdiction of all bishops.
    --Shak.

    Syn: To mutilate; mangle; cripple.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
maim

c.1300, maimen, from Old French mahaignier "injure, wound, muitilate, cripple, disarm," possibly from Vulgar Latin *mahanare (source also of Provençal mayanhar, Italian magagnare), of unknown origin; or possibly from a Germanic source, from Proto-Germanic *mait- (source of Old Norse meiða "to hurt," related to mad (adj.)), or from PIE root *mai- "to cut." Related: Maimed; maiming.

Wiktionary
maim

vb. To wound seriously; to cause permanent loss of function of a limb or part of the body.

WordNet
maim

v. injure or wound seriously and leave permanent disfiguration or mutilation; "people were maimed by the explosion"

Usage examples of "maim".

Philadelphia customers is armed with a brickbat and is just moving forward to maim Haystack Duggeler with this instrument, when who steps into the situation but Baseball Hattie, who is also on her way to the station to catch a train, and who is greatly horrified by the assault on the Giants.

Children could be quite cruel, especially to someone who was different, and Citrine with her maimed left hand and her exiled mother was different indeed.

She had heard the tale from Stave: the defeat and maiming of Korik, Sill, and Doar had led the Bloodguard to turn their backs on their Vow.

It fell on them, killing Paulsen, killing or maiming all the dogs, and leaving Falconet himself unconscious under a corner of the avalanche.

Even if the poor wretches survived the tribulation, they could die if the wound festered, or be left maimed for life.

The father of the boy, who was poor and had a large family, seeing himself near death, had thought of having his unfortunate son maimed so that he should become the support of his brothers with his voice.

To eulogize Phil properly, recall from the post-apocalyptic junkyard a menagerie of maimed automata -- ersatz sheep, a robot German shepherd, a haggish simulacrum of Secretariat -- and a crew of pertinacious little people, from Lumky to Isidore to Tagomi, then set them singing until they entropically abort.

If so you should know that it now has no maim and very few old inmates remaining.

These barbarians not only looted and raped, they laughingly prefaced murder with maiming and unholy mutilations, they raped women to death, then continued to defile the corpses for hours.

Mothers do not want to know that the child they carry will be born dead, or that their sons will die before they do, and their husbands will be maimed during the hunt.

Iron had long since taken over as the metal of choice for forging weapons, and the number of Maimed Men had been declining for decades.

Said he was riding one of those shaggy little ponies the Maimed Men are known for.

The Maimed Man had stripped off his makepiece armor and now walked in felted tunic and kilt.

There was a lot of meat, even considering he and the Maimed Man had roasted whatever they fancied and been none too careful with what was left.

More Maimed Men had come to the fire, and a group of women had gathered near the rear.