lame
adjective
physically disabled, especially in the foot or leg so as to limp or walk with difficulty.
lame
1 American
[leym]
/ leɪm /
adjective
-
lamer,
comparative
-
lamest
superlative
-
physically disabled, especially in the foot or leg so as to limp or walk with difficulty.
a lame racehorse.
-
impaired or disabled through defect or injury.
a lame arm.
-
weak; inadequate; unsatisfactory; clumsy.
a lame excuse.
-
Slang: Sometimes Disparaging and Offensive. awkward, dull, stupid, or uninteresting.
-
Slang: Sometimes Disparaging and Offensive. out of touch with modern fads or trends; unsophisticated.
verb (used with object)
-
lames,
present (3rd person singular)
-
lamed,
past participle, past
-
laming
present participle
noun
lame
2
American
[leym, la m]
/ leɪm, lam /
noun
Armor.
-
lames
plural
lamé
3
American
[lah-mey, la-, la -mey]
/ lɑˈmeɪ, læ-, laˈmeɪ /
noun
-
lamés
plural
lame
1
British
/ leɪm /
adjective
-
disabled or crippled in the legs or feet
-
painful or weak
a lame back
-
weak; unconvincing
a lame excuse
-
not effective or enthusiastic
a lame try
-
slang conventional or uninspiring
verb
lamé
2
British
/ ˈlɑːmeɪ /
noun
lame
3
British
/ leɪm /
noun
Sensitive Note
Many speakers do not recognize or consider the connection between the medical and slang senses of lame . Nevertheless, using a term associated with injury or disability as a general insult is sometimes perceived as insensitive to or by people with disabilities.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Adjectives
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
lamesimple
-
lamessimple
-
have lamedperfect
-
has lamedperfect
-
am lamingprogressive
-
are lamingprogressive
-
is lamingprogressive
-
have been lamingperfect progressive
-
has been lamingperfect progressive
Past
-
lamedsimple
-
had lamedperfect
-
was lamingprogressive
-
were lamingprogressive
-
had been lamingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of lame1
First recorded before 900; Middle English (adjective and verb); Old English lama (adjective); cognate with Dutch lam, German lahm, Old Norse lami; akin to Lithuanian lúomas
Origin of lame2
1580–90; < Middle French < Latin lāmina a thin piece or plate
Origin of lamé3
1920–25; < French, equivalent to lame lame 2 + -é < Latin -ātus -ate 1
Explanation
You might describe a limping dog that's lost the use of one of its legs as lame, which means "disabled in a leg or foot." It's less common than describing injured animals as lame, but sometimes you'll hear the word lame used to describe a limping person too. This usage is generally considered to be outdated or inappropriate. Lame is probably most often used to mean generally weak or pathetic — but many people consider this usage to be offensive as well.
Vocabulary lists containing lame
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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.
See Examples For:
It was an already-poorly lamb, which Fiona said had not shown typical symptoms - it had been drooling, dropping food from its mouth and its legs were stiff, but not lame.
From BBC ● Aug. 17, 2026
How could the clueless become clued if their peers weren’t picking on their every lame move?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 30, 2026
What should have been a unique way for “Supergirl” to remark on the infantilization projected onto so many women superheroes is cast away as a joke so lame it doesn’t even deserve to be finished.
From Salon ● Jun. 27, 2026
As lame as the fact that an Erewhon smoothie costs $19 is that so many of us need to be paid to be nice to each other.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 25, 2026
Coach told Rachel to grab me a lame, a conductive jacket that defined the scoring area on the fencer.
From "Proud" by Ibtihaj Muhammad
When the college awarded him its gold medal, Hockney accepted the honor wearing a gold lamé jacket.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
Onstage, Rodriguez, hosted in his own signature style — no gold lamé, but a fedora, black sunglasses and a white guayabera shirt.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 28, 2025
Long finally settled on a longer gold lamé dress by Norma Kamali, and a great time was had.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 28, 2023
The book describes the delivery of gold lamé dresses to a tiny atoll near New Guinea for a show organized by an Army Air Corpsman, Ben Small.
From New York Times ● Jun. 1, 2023
I select her gold lamé sandals, which have a thick platform sole and an ankle strap.
From "Lucky Broken Girl" by Ruth Behar
As for his newly created clothes, there was an “homage to the lodge” in plaid lames and cashmeres, melting into sunset-drenched oranges and pinks inspired by his Colorado vacation.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 25, 2021
But then Blane lames out on taking her, and this is where Andie really comes into her own.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 21, 2014
Later he became a lobbyist for Bishop lames Pike in California, charged, among other tasks, with persuading the state's legislators to vote for liberalized abortion laws.
From Time Magazine Archive
Dramatically grave-robbed from Beckett, this is a good isometric exercise for the neck, but lames the brain.
From Time Magazine Archive
Hawking; as lames tbe First pointed out, is an extreme stirrer up of passions.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
A warning: an expensive sporting event is usually a lamer one.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 20, 2026
The sharing of AI-generated images online, for one thing, has gone from seeming cool and even a little spooky to lamer than an account with a blue check mark.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 11, 2023
It was such a snooze, he almost forgot to celebrate after holing his final putt and gave a lamer fist pump than Lucas Glover at the 2009 U.S.
From Golf Digest ● Feb. 26, 2019
Many spots played it safe, with wan jokes that felt even lamer than usual.
From Slate ● Feb. 6, 2017
“You had to? That’s even lamer than denying it.”
From "Ask the Passengers" by A.S. King
The family’s insecurity over this surged into view last week, when the alleged “ladies man” was photographed doing the lamest possible thing on New Year’s Eve: hanging out with his parents at Mar-a-Lago.
From Salon ● Jan. 12, 2026
“We’ve never had as many amazing tools to make stuff, and then have it be used in the lamest way possible.”
From Los Angeles Times ● May 19, 2025
Mr Loach had told the PA news agency that keeping Mr Driscoll off the longlist published on Friday because they shared a platform was the "lamest excuse I've ever heard".
From BBC ● Jun. 5, 2023
He calls Grodin “the lamest host we’ve ever had,” then storms out.
From Washington Post ● May 19, 2021
Rachel could tell the lamest jokes and boys fall about the place in laughter.
From "Shelter (Book One): A Mickey Bolitar Novel" by Harlan Coben
A syphilitic infection, contracted in his university days and never diagnosed, had progressively lamed his left leg, crippled his left arm, and in his last years reduced him to almost helpless invalidism.
From Time Magazine Archive
In the lake, the perch, pike and sun.isn are lamed for their tastiness.
From Time Magazine Archive
But this year, he cannot play, must be content to watch from the sidelines, lamenting the hunting accident which lamed him last spring.
From Time Magazine Archive
To small Drew University of Madison, N. J. fell the lamed Wendel mansion on 39th Street and Fifth Avenue, with a high-fenced side yard which was maintained exclusively for Spinster Wendel's toothless, asthmatic poodle Tobey.
From Time Magazine Archive
Some of them were small and troublesome, creatures who lamed horses and spoiled milk.
From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss
My wife suffered from laming traumatic dislocation for eight years.
From Time Magazine Archive
Since last spring the world's biggest public school system, New York City's, has wallowed along like a superliner with a laming leak.
From Time Magazine Archive
Of all the difficult hurdles a new French Premier must leap without laming himself, the first and foremost is Algeria.
From Time Magazine Archive
Dr. Caius laid stress upon exercise as an aid to health, but some popular games he thought “rather a laming of legges than an exercise.”
From The Doctor in History, Literature, Folk-Lore, Etc. by Various
The danger, however, attending this pastime occasioned James I. to say: “From this Court I debarre all rough and violent exercises, as the football, meeter for laming than making able the users thereof.”
From Folk-lore of Shakespeare by Thomas Firminger Thiselton-Dyer
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.
