duck-legged

[duhk-leg-id, -legd]

adjective

1. having legs that are unusually short.

   He crept up in a half-crouch that made him look duck-legged.

Word History and Origins

Origin of duck-legged¹

First recorded in 1640–50

Example Sentences

Duck-legged, short-waisted, such a dwarf she is That she must rise on tiptoe for a kiss.

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What a wide-spread "liberal" laudation, for instance, there was about the famous definition of a Tory, in the Times,—and yet how soon it became its own "duck-legged drummer-boy," and all that!

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These were an excessively duck-legged animal, with well-formed bodies, full chest, broad backs, yielding a close heavy fleece of medium quality of wool.

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"That's just because you're a duck-legged snipe," answered Gid wrathfully.

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Think of a stoutish, stooping, duck-legged man, with a mountainous back, strongly suggestive of a bag of grist under his shirt, and you have him.

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