limbus

From Middle English limbus, from Latin limbus (“edge, border”).

• Rhymes: -ɪmbəs

limbus (plural limbuses or limbi)

1. (medicine, biology) A border of an anatomical part, such as the edge of the cornea.

• limbal
• limbal ring

• limbate

• IPA^(key): [ˈlɪmbus]

limbus m inan

1. limbo (place for innocent souls)

   Synonym: předpeklí

• “limbus”, in Příruční slovník jazyka českého (in Czech), 1935–1957
• “limbus”, in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého (in Czech), 1960–1971, 1989
• “limbus”, in Internetová jazyková příručka (in Czech), 2008–2025

Uncertain. Possibly:

• from Proto-Indo-European *lemb- (“to hang loosely, hang limply”), the same tentative root as Sanskrit लम्बते (lambate, “hangs down”) and English limp,^[1] a nasal-infixed form of *leb-;
• or from Proto-Indo-European *len-, whence Lithuanian linta (“ribbon”) and Old Norse linnr (“whether”). (Can this⁽⁺⁾ etymology be sourced?)

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈlɪm.bʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈlim.bus]

limbus m (genitive limbī); second declension

1. A border, edge

   Synonyms: margō, ōra

2. hem, fringe, tassel

   Synonyms: instita, ōra, patagīum

3. (Ecclesiastical Latin) limbo

Second-declension noun.

• “limbus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “limbus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "limbus", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• limbus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “limbus”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• limbus in Ramminger, Johann (16 July 2016 (last accessed)) Neulateinische Wortliste: Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700‎^[1], pre-publication website, 2005-2016
• “limbus”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin

• lymbus, Limbus

From Latin limbus; compare lymbo.

• IPA^(key): /ˈlimbus/

limbus

1. (Late Middle English, rare) limbo (waiting place for souls)

   Synonym: lymbo

• English: limbus
• Scots: lymbus (obsolete)

• “limbus, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.