maim
Americanverb (used with object)
noun
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a physical injury, especially a loss of a limb.
-
an injury or defect; blemish; lack.
verb
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to mutilate, cripple, or disable a part of the body of (a person or animal)
-
to make defective
noun
Related Words
Maim, lacerate, mangle, mutilate indicate the infliction of painful and severe injuries on the body. To maim is to injure by giving a disabling wound, or by depriving a person of one or more members or their use: maimed in an accident. To lacerate is to inflict severe cuts and tears on the flesh or skin: to lacerate an arm. To mangle is to chop undiscriminatingly or to crush or rend by blows or pressure, as if by machinery: bodies mangled in a train wreck. To mutilate is to injure the completeness or beauty of a body, especially by cutting off an important member: to mutilate a statue, a tree, a person.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of maim
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English mayme, variant of mahayme mayhem
Explanation
To maim something is to disfigure it through force or violence. Wartime battles have a tendency to maim soldiers. The verb maim is related to mayhem, which, historically, was the act of hurting another person so badly that they couldn’t defend themselves. To maim a person or animal, even if it’s an accident, is to render them defenseless or disfigured, and it frequently includes the loss of a limb. The goal of driving defensively is to avoid an accident that could maim you, your passengers, or other people on the road.
Vocabulary lists containing maim
A Long Way Gone
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"A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "M"
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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.
Once a marginally hardy tree or big shrub for the Deep South and the beach, new varieties have been bred to expand the tree’s range into what might be called Maim Street USA.
From Washington Post • Mar. 17, 2015
Once a marginally hardy tree or big shrub for the Deep South and the beach, new varieties have been bred to expand the tree’s range into what might be called Maim Street USA.
From Washington Post • Mar. 17, 2015
Why, Maim, he said—" "It don't make no difference what he SAID—that ain't the thing.
From Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapters 26 to 30 by Twain, Mark
Younger Brother Albert Kur-Mainz, whom Hutten celebrated; born 1490; Archbishop of Magdeburg and Halberstadt 1513, of Maim 1514; died 1545: set Tetzel, and the Indulgence, on foot.
From History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 03 by Carlyle, Thomas
Why, Maim, he said—" "It don't make no difference what he said—that ain't the thing.
From The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Tom Sawyer's Comrade by Twain, Mark
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.
