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maim

[meym]

Example Sentences Origin

verb (used with object)

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.

noun Obsolete.

a physical injury, especially a loss of a limb.

an injury or defect; blemish; lack.

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Maim is one of our favorite verbs.

So is skedaddle. Does it mean:

to run away hurriedly; flee.

to bark; yelp.

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Origin:
1250–1300; Middle English mayme, variant of mahayme mayhem

Related forms

maimed·ness, noun

maim·er, noun

re·maim, verb (used with object)

self-maimed, adjective

un·maimed, adjective

Can be confused: maim, mayhem (see synonym note at the current entry).

Synonyms
1. 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 Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To maim

Example Sentences

Land mines kill and maim thousands of people a year, many of them children.

Forget the idiotic political jibes, this is a chilling image of someone about to kill or maim you.

The basic tools you need to kill or maim large numbers of people are easy to obtain.

EXPAND

Land mines kill and maim thousands of people a year, many of them children.

Forget the idiotic political jibes, this is a chilling image of someone about to kill or maim you.

The basic tools you need to kill or maim large numbers of people are easy to obtain.

The games reportedly maim and wound thousands of horses each year.

Please get it right, it takes a lot of effort to murder, maim and kill innocent people to get the point across.

Even then, those animals often retain the ability to maim and kill.

What's more, an explosion would kill or maim people.

On one occasion, in the discharge of the duties of his office, he indicted a man for maim.

Members of this blogger's apparently vast audience threatened to sue me, maim me or get me fired.

Every at-bat is critical now, and every forsaken opportunity could tilt a game and help maim their season.

The latter have managed to kill and maim each other.

The reality remains that drunken drivers continue to kill and maim innocent people on our roadways.

If special academies are needed for those who potentially maim and kill, then so be it.

Padilla was that he conspired to murder, maim and kidnap people in a foreign country.

Convicted of all charges of conspiring to murder, kidnap and maim people overseas, the three could face life in prison.

Injectable silicone has been around the longest and, when used improperly, can maim or kill people.

Cluster munitions scatter tiny but deadly bomblets that explode over a wide area to kill or maim people.

And, on rare occasions, rampaging bulls have been known to damage parked cars and maim pedestrians.

Breeding them in zoos proved hugely problematic because the male would often maim or kill its partner.

He wants the world, and if he must tear flesh and maim spirit to get it, so be it.

They have been known to maim rebellious members as well as outsiders.

As a first step, the state should enforce laws already on its books to protect women and punish those who kill or maim them.

He has an unpleasant run-in with a coyote hunter, whose wolfhounds kill one of his dogs and maim the other.

The violations that destroy human lives, or maim them, seem to demand telling.

It is true that cars and trucks can too easily maim and kill cyclists.

People got what they got based on their ability to push and pull, maim and slaughter.

Unexploded bomblets scattered over broad areas can kill and maim people for years.

The propellers of pleasure boats kill or maim scores of turtles.

Land mines lurk in the ground waiting to kill or maim almost exclusively in poor countries.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

maim (meɪm)

—vb
1.	to mutilate, cripple, or disable a part of the body of (a person or animal)
2.	to make defective

—n
3.	obsolete an injury or defect

[C14: from Old French mahaignier to wound, probably of Germanic origin]

maimedness

—n

'maimer

—n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

maim

c.1300, from O.Fr. mahaignier, possibly from V.L. *mahanare (cf. Prov. mayanhar, It. magagnare), of unknown origin. Possibly from P.Gmc. *mait- (cf. O.N. meiða "to hurt," related to mad), or from PIE *mai- "to cut." Related: Maimed; maiming.

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Related Words

cripple

mayhem

Matching Quote

"I regard the state of which I am a citizen as a public utility, like the organization that supplies me with water, gas, and electricity. I feel that it is my civic duty to pay my taxes as well as my other bills, and that it is my moral duty to make an honest declaration of my income to the income tax authorities. But I do not feel that I and my fellow citizens have a religious duty to sacrifice our lives in war on behalf of our own state, and, a fortiori, I do not feel that we have an obligation or a right to kill and maim citizens of other states or to devastate their land."

-A.J. Toynbee

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