- present participle of cripple.
crippling
Britishadjective
Other Word Forms
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Those reforms sparked a boom in real estate and construction, which would soar to become a quarter of China's economy before a crippling debt crisis struck in 2020.
From Barron's ● Aug. 12, 2026
Her crippling impostor syndrome was a feature, not a bug — we were stuck there with her for at least two seasons.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026
They hired general managers just to fire them a couple of years later, burned through coaches and signed washed-up star players to crippling contracts.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 14, 2026
When a beefy bad guy who was about to squish a normal-sized good guy received a crippling blow to the scrotum, I laughed.
From Slate ● Jun. 11, 2026
It may seem like a small thing, but it was a crippling handicap in navigating the world beyond Bozeman.
From "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
