Word forms: plural, 3rd person singular presenttense cripples, present participle crippling, past tense, past participle crippled
1. countable noun
A person with a physical disability or a serious permanent injury is sometimes referred to as a cripple.
[offensive]
She has gone from being a healthy, fit, and sporty young woman to being a cripple.
2. verb
If someone is crippled by an injury, it is so serious that they can never move their body properly again.
Mr Easton was seriously crippled in an accident and had to leave his job. [beVERB-ed]
He had been warned that another bad fall could cripple him for life. [VERB noun]
He heaved his crippled leg into an easier position. [VERB-ed]
3. countable noun
If you describe someone as an emotional cripple, you mean that they have a particular psychological or emotional problem which prevents them from living a normal life.
[offensive]
4. verb
If something cripples a person, it causes them severe psychological or emotional problems.
Howard wanted to be a popular singer, but stage fright crippled him. [VERB noun]
I'm not perfect but I'm also not emotionally crippled or lonely. [VERB-ed]
5. verb
To cripple a machine, organization, or system means to damage it severely or prevent it from working properly.
Let's try to cripple their communications. [VERB noun]
A total cut-off of supplies would cripple the country's economy. [VERB noun]
The pilot was able to maneuver the crippled aircraft out of the hostile area. [VERB-ed]
Synonyms: damage, destroy, ruin, bring to a standstill More Synonyms of cripple
cripple in British English
(ˈkrɪpəl)
noun
1. old-fashioned, offensive
a person who is unable to walk or walk easily as a result of injury or disability
2. offensive
a person who is or seems deficient in some way
an emotional cripple
3. US dialect
a dense thicket, usually in marshy land
verb
4. (transitive)
to disable (a person) in some way
5. (transitive)
to make ineffective or incapable
Derived forms
crippler (ˈcrippler)
noun
Word origin
Old English crypel; related to crēopan to creep, Old Frisian kreppel a cripple, Middle Low German kröpel
cripple in American English
(ˈkrɪpəl) (verb-pled, -pling)
noun
1. sometimes offensive
a.
a person or animal that is partially or totally unable to use one or more limbs; a lame or disabled person or animal
b.
a person who is disabled or impaired in any way:
an emotional cripple
2.
anything that is impaired or flawed
3.
a wounded animal, esp. one shot by a hunter
4. Carpentry
any structural member shorter than usual, as a stud beneath a window sill
5. Eastern U.S.
a swampy, densely overgrown tract of land
transitive verb
6.
to render unable to use one or more limbs
7.
to disable; impair; weaken
adjective
8. Carpentry
having a height or length less than that of most of the others in a structure; jack
Derived forms
crippler
noun
cripplingly
adverb
Word origin
[bef. 950; ME cripel, OE crypel; akin to creep]
Synonyms of 'cripple'
disable, paralyse, lame, debilitate
damage, destroy, ruin, bring to a standstill
More Synonyms of cripple
In other languages
cripple
British English: cripple VERB
If someone is crippled by an injury, it is so serious that they can never move their body properly again.
He was crippled in an accident and had to leave his job.