MAIM

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does maim mean? 

• MAIM (verb)
  The verb MAIM has 1 sense:

1. injure or wound seriously and leave permanent disfiguration or mutilation

  Familiarity information: MAIM used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MAIM (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they maim    ... he / she / it maims   
Past simple: maimed   
Past participle: maimed   
-ing form: maiming   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Injure or wound seriously and leave permanent disfiguration or mutilation

Classified under:

Verbs of grooming, dressing and bodily care

Context example:

people were maimed by the explosion

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

injure; wound (cause injuries or bodily harm to)

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

mar; mutilate (destroy or injure severely)

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

Sentence frames:

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

Derivation:

maimer (a person who mutilates or destroys or disfigures or cripples)

 Context examples 

I was in my own room as usual—just myself, without obvious change: nothing had smitten me, or scathed me, or maimed me.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Then they fell upon each other, like young bulls, in all the glory of youth, with naked fists, with hatred, with desire to hurt, to maim, to destroy.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

“There has been a conspiracy to maim or kidnap my man, and I have every reason to believe that you are privy to it.”

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Brutality had followed brutality, and flaming passions and cold-blooded cruelty had driven men to seek one another’s lives, and to strive to hurt, and maim, and destroy.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

However, they have excellent medicines, composed of herbs, to cure accidental bruises and cuts in the pastern or frog of the foot, by sharp stones, as well as other maims and hurts in the several parts of the body.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

The ugly monster, when he saw me, distorted several ways, every feature of his visage, and stared, as at an object he had never seen before; then approaching nearer, lifted up his fore-paw, whether out of curiosity or mischief I could not tell; but I drew my hanger, and gave him a good blow with the flat side of it, for I durst not strike with the edge, fearing the inhabitants might be provoked against me, if they should come to know that I had killed or maimed any of their cattle.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)