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cripple.

Crippled.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈkɹɪp(ə)l/
  1. Crippled.

    archaic · dated · not-comparable
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *grewbʰ-der. Proto-Germanic *kreupaną Proto-Indo-European *-lósder.? Proto-Indo-European *-tḗr Proto-Indo-European *-tromder.? Proto-Germanic *-ilaz Proto-Germanic *krupilaz Proto-West Germanic *krupil Old English crypel Middle English crepelder. English cripple From Middle English cripel, crepel, crüpel, from Old English crypel (“crippled; a cripple”), from Proto-Germanic *krupilaz (“tending to crawl; a cripple”), from Proto-Indo-European *grewb- (“to bend, crouch, crawl”), from Proto-Indo-European *ger- (“to bend, twist”), equivalent to creep + -le. Cognate with Dutch kreupel, Low German Kröpel, German Krüppel, Old Norse kryppill.

noun/ˈkɹɪp(ə)l/
  1. A person who has severely impaired physical abilities because of deformation, injury, or amputation of parts of the body.

    countable · offensive · uncountable
    He returned from war a cripple.
  2. A person who is severely impaired or deficient in some non-physical way.

    broadly · countable · figuratively · uncountable
  3. A shortened wooden stud or brace used to construct the portion of a wall above a door or above and below a window.

    countable · uncountable
  4. Scrapple.

    dialectal · uncountable
  5. A rocky shallow in a stream.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *grewbʰ-der. Proto-Germanic *kreupaną Proto-Indo-European *-lósder.? Proto-Indo-European *-tḗr Proto-Indo-European *-tromder.? Proto-Germanic *-ilaz Proto-Germanic *krupilaz Proto-West Germanic *krupil Old English crypel Middle English crepelder. English cripple From Middle English cripel, crepel, crüpel, from Old English crypel (“crippled; a cripple”), from Proto-Germanic *krupilaz (“tending to crawl; a cripple”), from Proto-Indo-European *grewb- (“to bend, crouch, crawl”), from Proto-Indo-European *ger- (“to bend, twist”), equivalent to creep + -le. Cognate with Dutch kreupel, Low German Kröpel, German Krüppel, Old Norse kryppill.

verb/ˈkɹɪp(ə)l/
  1. To make someone a cripple; to cause someone to become physically impaired.

    The car bomb crippled five passers-by.
  2. To damage seriously; to destroy.

    figuratively
    My ambitions were crippled by a lack of money.
  3. To cause severe and disabling damage; to make unable to function normally.

    figuratively
  4. To release a product (especially a computer program) with reduced functionality, in some cases, making the item essentially worthless.

    The word processor was released in a crippled demonstration version that did not allow you to save.
  5. To nerf something to the point of being underpowered.

    slang
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *grewbʰ-der. Proto-Germanic *kreupaną Proto-Indo-European *-lósder.? Proto-Indo-European *-tḗr Proto-Indo-European *-tromder.? Proto-Germanic *-ilaz Proto-Germanic *krupilaz Proto-West Germanic *krupil Old English crypel Middle English crepelder. English cripple From Middle English cripel, crepel, crüpel, from Old English crypel (“crippled; a cripple”), from Proto-Germanic *krupilaz (“tending to crawl; a cripple”), from Proto-Indo-European *grewb- (“to bend, crouch, crawl”), from Proto-Indo-European *ger- (“to bend, twist”), equivalent to creep + -le. Cognate with Dutch kreupel, Low German Kröpel, German Krüppel, Old Norse kryppill.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.