limbo
Part of speech: noun
Morphological type: simple
Topics: Catholicism
Christianity
Roman-Catholicism
engineering
government
military
natural-sciences
nautical
physical-sciences
politics
tools
transport
war
weaponry
Etymology: The noun is derived from Middle English limbo, lymbo (“place where innocent souls exist temporarily until they can enter heaven”), from Latin limbō, the ablative singular of limbus (“border, edge; hem; fringe, tassel”) (notably in expressions like in limbō (“in limbo”) and e limbō (“out of limbo”)); further etymology uncertain, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *lemb- (“to hang limply or loosely”), from Proto-Indo-European *leb- (“to hang down loosely (?)”). Doublet of limp.
The verb is derived from the noun.
Inflected forms:
form: limbos
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: limboes
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: Limbo
pos: noun
tags: alternative
Senses:
gloss: A speculative place or state, thought possibly to be on the edge of the bottomless pit of Hell, where the souls of innocent deceased people might exist temporarily until they can enter heaven, specifically those of the saints who died before the advent of Jesus Christ (who occupy the limbo patrum or limbo of the patriarchs or fathers) and those of unbaptized infants (who occupy the limbo infantum or limbo of the infants); (countable) the possible place where each category of souls might exist, regarded separately.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
examples: Of vvhat texte thou proveſt hell / vvill a nother prove purgatory / a nother lymbo patrum / and a nother the aſſumpcion of oure ladi: And a nother ſhall prove of the ſame texte that an Ape hath a tayle.
Oh vvhat a ſimpathie of vvoe is this, / As farre from helpe, as Lymbo is from bliſſe.
VVith all my hart, fare-vvell, far-vvell, / I am freed from Lymbo to be ſent to hell.
And they who have multiplied hells unto us, and made more hells than God hath made, more by their two limboes, (one for fathers, another for children) and one purgatory, have yet made their new hells more of the nature of heaven than of hell.
Limbo, or more exactly the notion of two different limbos within Christendom, was also an invention. Many medieval Christians had difficulty accepting the idea of eternal punishment meted out to two categories of persons who, on strictly technical grounds, were "outside" the Church and otherwise quite beyond the pale. The first category embraced wise and just people who died before the coming of Christ, and the second included all infants born within Christendom but, unfortunately, unbaptized at the time of their death.
gloss: Chiefly preceded by in: any in-between place, or condition or state, of neglect or oblivion which results in deadlock, delay, or some other unresolved status.
pos: noun
tags: broadly
countable
uncountable
examples: My passport application has been stuck in bureaucratic limbo for two weeks.
It is hard to place thoſe ſoules in Hell vvhoſe vvorthy lives doe teach us vertue on earth; methinks amongſt thoſe many ſubdiviſions of hel, there might have been one Limbo left for theſe: […]
Proceeding further, I am met vvith a vvhole ging of vvords and phraſes not mine, for he hath maim'd them, and like a ſlye depraver mangl'd them in this his vvicked Limbo, vvorſe then the ghoſt of Deiphobus appear'd to his friend Æneas.
[T]hat myſterious iniquity provokt and troubl'd at the firſt entrance of Reformation, ſought out nevv limbo's and nevv hells vvherein they might include our Booke alſo vvithin the number of their damned.
[T]hen might ye ſee / […] / Indulgences, Diſpenſes, Pardons, Bulls, / The ſport of Winds: all theſe upwhirld aloft / Fly o're the backſide of the World farr off / Into a Limbo large and broad, ſince calld / The Paradiſe of Fools, […]
[…] [John] Milton has interwoven in the texture of his fable, some particulars which do not seem to have probability enough for an epic poem, particularly in the actions which he ascribes to Sin and Death, and the picture he draws of the ‘Limbo of Vanity,’ with other passages in the second book.
Society sails through the Infinitude on Cloth, as on a Faust's Mantle, or rather like the Sheet of clean and unclean beasts in the Apostle's Dream; and without such Sheet or Mantle, would sink to endless depths, or mount to inane limboes, and in either case be no more.
As yet my books are lying as ghost books, in a limbo on the banks of a certain Bristolian Styx, humanly speaking, a Canal; […]
Homœpathy, so-called, is an unutterable humbug, and is to be consigned to the eternal Limbos of the Unblessed—where, indeed, it is already for the most part gone.
[U]rged beyond that line where the soul is mistress over herself, he lost himself in those delicious limboes, which the vulgar call so foolishly "the imaginary regions."
His [Thomas De Witt Talmage's] so-called "sermons" are but fragmentary and usually ignorant allusions to things in general. He seldom or never encroaches upon the realms of science and philosophy, although he frequently attempts it, and evidently imagines that he is succeeding admirably, when he is but sloshing around, like a drunken comet that is chiefly tail, in inane limboes.
Like unbaptized children and the non-Christian righteous, black feminisms have been relegated to an outer realm where, while not exactly punished for their sins, they are ghettoized for an alleged poor timing and inability to encounter the "larger paradigms" undergirding existence. Women from oppressed peoples routinely find themselves in liberation limbos.
But the railway is in limbo, paralysed by indecision. Let's have some clarity.
The bigger worry for the Mail is that, if any of the claims are successful, it could open the door for other cases against the newspaper that could leave it in legal limbo for years.
gloss: Jail, prison; (countable) a jail cell or lockup.
pos: noun
tags: archaic
broadly
slang
uncountable
examples: Adr[iana]. VVhere is thy Maſter Dromio? Is he vvell? / S. Dro. [Dromio of Syracuse] No, he's in Tartar limbo, vvorſe then hell: […] / S. Dro. I doe not knovv the matter, hee is reſted [i.e., arrested] on the caſe. / Adr. VVhat is he arreſted? tell me at vvhoſe ſuite?
Theſe are the youths that thunder at a Playhouſe, and fight for bitten Apples, that no Audience but the tribulation of Tovver Hill, or the Limbes of Limehouſe, their deare Brothers are able to endure. I haue ſome of 'em in Limbo Patrum, and there they are like to dance theſe three dayes; beſides the running Banquet of tvvo Beadles, that is to come.
[O]n she went, / To find the Knight in Limbo pent: / And 'twas not long before she found / Him, and his stout Squire in the Pound; / Both coupled in Inchanted Tether, / By further Leg behind together: […]
Patr[ick]. […] [S]hame burn my cheek! My maſter, d'ye ſee, had gotten into the limboes; […] / Major C[amden]. But vvhat do you mean by your maſter's being in the limboes, Patrick? / Patr. VVhy, Maſter Tipſtaff here—Isn't it Tipſtaff ye call him?—kidnapped him; that's all, Honey.
Abbot Samson […] hurls out a bolt or two of excommunication: lo, one disobedient Monk sits in limbo, excommunicated, with foot-shackles on him, all day; and three more our Abbot has gyved 'with the lesser sentence, to strike fear into the others!'
The room was half full: there were, […] poets not yet in limbo; authors who were still able to pay for their lodgings; young fellows whose creditors were still forbearing; […]
Blind Thaddeus O'Gorman was soon sent to limbo, safely secured in the police lock-up at Green Skipperton, whence he was removed next day to the nearest gaol, there to await trial at the next assize.
gloss: Synonym of Hades or Hell.
pos: noun
tags: broadly
obsolete
uncountable
examples: Nor quite of future Povv'r himſelf bereft, / But Limbo's large for Unbelievers left.
gloss: Synonym of pawn (“the state of something being held as security for a loan, or as a pledge”).
pos: noun
tags: broadly
obsolete
uncountable
examples: […] I let him have all my ready Mony to redeem his great Svvord from Limbo— […]
gloss: A type of antisubmarine mortar installed on naval vessels.
pos: noun
tags: countable
Related words: hell
paradise
purgatory
valley of death
Derived words: development limbo
limboer
limboid
limbolike
limbo set
limbo skating
Translations: