maim
[meym]
- to deprive of the use of some part of the body by wounding or the like; cripple: The explosion maimed him for life.
- to impair; make essentially defective: The essay was maimed by deletion of important paragraphs.
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- a physical injury, especially a loss of a limb.
- an injury or defect; blemish; lack.
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Origin of maim
Synonyms
See more synonyms for maim on Thesaurus.com1. 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. 2. injure, disable, deface, mar.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for maimed
Contemporary Examples
Bodies come back in flag-shrouded coffins, and the living and maimed are hailed as heroes with purpose.
She had a way of convincing sick and maimed people that she was their equal.
One year after the Boston bombing, a maimed survivor faces the choice of amputation.
The Daily Beast’s Best Longreads, April 12, 2014April 12, 2014
That attitude extends to fans, a few of whom are killed or maimed each year by flying car parts after a collision.
Had the bomb exploded, scores of New Yorkers likely would have been killed and even more wounded or maimed.
Historical Examples
If I've maimed this poor devil and there are consequences, I'll stand 'em.
The Black BagLouis Joseph Vance
There was a struggle in her maimed arm as she twisted it away, but there was none in her face.
Little DorritCharles Dickens
You can lie here––here––maimed, already starving––and can plan like that?
Out of the DepthsRobert Ames Bennet
On Tuesday we visited the school for maimed soldiers in Paris.
A Journey Through France in War TimeJoseph G. Butler, Jr.
As it is, both of them are maimed and imperfect on different sides.
Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.)Leslie Stephen
maim
- to mutilate, cripple, or disable a part of the body of (a person or animal)
- to make defective
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- obsolete an injury or defect
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Word Origin
C14: from Old French mahaignier to wound, probably of Germanic origin
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for maimed
maim
v.
c.1300, maimen, from Old French mahaignier "injure, wound, muitilate, cripple, disarm," possibly from Vulgar Latin *mahanare (cf. Provençal mayanhar, Italian magagnare), of unknown origin; or possibly from a Germanic source, from Proto-Germanic *mait- (cf. Old Norse meiða "to hurt," related to mad (adj.)), or from PIE root *mai- "to cut." Related: Maimed; maiming.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper