English Dictionary

CRIPPLE

Pronunciation (US): Play  (GB): Play

IPA (US): 

 Dictionary entry overview: What does cripple mean? 

CRIPPLE (noun)
  The noun CRIPPLE has 1 sense:

1. someone who is unable to walk normally because of an injury or disability to the legs or backplay

  Familiarity information: CRIPPLE used as a noun is very rare.


CRIPPLE (verb)
  The verb CRIPPLE has 2 senses:

1. deprive of strength or efficiency; make useless or worthlessplay

2. deprive of the use of a limb, especially a legplay

  Familiarity information: CRIPPLE used as a verb is rare.


 Dictionary entry details 


CRIPPLE (noun)


Sense 1

Meaning:

Someone who is unable to walk normally because of an injury or disability to the legs or back

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("cripple" is a kind of...):

individual; mortal; person; somebody; someone; soul (a human being)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "cripple"):

crookback; humpback; hunchback (a person whose back is hunched because of abnormal curvature of the upper spine)

Derivation:

cripple (deprive of the use of a limb, especially a leg)


CRIPPLE (verb)

 Conjugation: 
Present simple: I / you / we / they cripple  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation ... he / she / it cripples  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation
Past simple: crippled  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation
Past participle: crippled  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation
-ing form: crippling  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation


Sense 1

Meaning:

Deprive of strength or efficiency; make useless or worthless

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

cripple; stultify

Context example:

Their behavior stultified the boss's hard work

Hypernyms (to "cripple" is one way to...):

weaken (lessen the strength of)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s somebody
Something ----s something


Sense 2

Meaning:

Deprive of the use of a limb, especially a leg

Classified under:

Verbs of grooming, dressing and bodily care

Synonyms:

cripple; lame

Context example:

The accident has crippled her for life

Hypernyms (to "cripple" is one way to...):

maim (injure or wound seriously and leave permanent disfiguration or mutilation)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "cripple"):

hamstring (cripple by cutting the hamstring)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody

Derivation:

cripple (someone who is unable to walk normally because of an injury or disability to the legs or back)


 Context examples 


It is evident, therefore, that if both girls had married, this beauty would have had a mere pittance, while even one of them would cripple him to a very serious extent.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

What use was it for me, a wretched cripple, to go back to England or to make myself known to my old comrades?

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The friends of Mr. Sherlock Holmes will be glad to learn that he is still alive and well, though somewhat crippled by occasional attacks of rheumatism.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I have good information, Belcher, that there has been a plot to cripple him, and that the rogues are so sure of success that they are prepared to lay anything against his appearance.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He had the wheel at the time, and I went forward to my hospital in the forecastle, where lay the two crippled men, Nilson and Thomas Mugridge.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

A crippled man, twenty years older than you, whom you will have to wait on?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

And yet, wretched cripple as I made myself by this act of homage to Dora, I walked miles upon miles daily in the hope of seeing her.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

A worse man to deal with was a wooden-legged cripple who came hobbling down the path, so weak and so old to all appearance that a child need not stand in fear of him.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The wolves were now in the country of game, and though they still hunted in pack, they hunted more cautiously, cutting out heavy cows or crippled old bulls from the small moose-herds they ran across.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

She had had difficulties of every sort to contend with, and in addition to these distresses had been afflicted with a severe rheumatic fever, which, finally settling in her legs, had made her for the present a cripple.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)



 Learn English with... Proverbs 
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