limb1

 
Pronunciation: /lɪm/

noun

  • 1an arm or leg of a person or four-legged animal, or a bird’s wing: they got out, stretching their cramped limbs fractured limbs
  • 2a large branch of a tree: the bare limbs of a high tree
  • a branch of a cross.
  • each half of an archery bow.
  • 3a projecting landform such as a spur of a mountain range, or each of two or more such projections as in a forked peninsula or archipelago.
  • a projecting section of a building.

Phrases

life and limb

life and all bodily faculties: a burglar risking life and limb to scramble into an open third-floor window

out on a limb

  • 1isolated: Aberdeen is rather out on a limb
  • 2in or into a position where one is not joined or supported by anyone else: I wouldn’t go out on a limb like this if I didn’t have the data to justify it

tear someone limb from limb

violently dismember someone.

Derivatives

limbed

adjective
[in combination]: long-limbed

limbless

adjective

Origin:

Old English lim (also in the sense 'organ or part of the body'), of Germanic origin