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Bough vs Limb - What's the difference?

bough | limb |

As nouns the difference between bough and limb

is that bough is a firm branch of a tree while limb is a major appendage of human or animal, used for locomotion (such as an arm, leg or wing).

As a verb limb is

to remove the limbs from an animal or tree.

bough

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A firm branch of a tree.
  • *
    • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=8 , passage=Now we plunged into a deep shade with the boughs lacing each other overhead, and crossed dainty, rustic bridges over the cold trout-streams, the boards giving back the clatter of our horses' feet: or anon we shot into a clearing, with a colored glimpse of the lake and its curving shore far below us.}}
  • * 2013 , . Melbourne, Australia: The Text Publishing Company. chapter 18. p. 172.
    • A pair of birds settle on the bough above them, murmuring together, ready to roost.

    Derived terms

    * (l)

    limb

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) lim, from (etyl) . The silent -b began to appear in the late 1500s.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A major appendage of human or animal, used for locomotion (such as an arm, leg or wing).
  • *
  • *:Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, comprised the furniture of this roof-garden, withon one of the copings a row of four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dust from which gnarled and rusty stalks thrust themselves up like withered elfin limbs .
  • A branch of a tree.
  • (lb) The part of the bow, from the handle to the tip.
  • (lb) The border or upper spreading part of a monopetalous corolla, or of a petal or sepal; blade.
  • (lb) The border or edge of the disk of a heavenly body, especially of the sun or moon.
  • The graduated margin of an arc or circle in an instrument for measuring angles.
  • An elementary piece of the mechanism of a lock.
  • A thing or person regarded as a part or member of, or attachment to, something else.
  • *Sir (Walter Scott) (1771-1832)
  • *:That little limb of the devil has cheated the gallows.
    • Derived terms
    * go out on a limb

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To remove the limbs from an animal or tree.
    • They limbed the felled trees before cutting them into logs.
  • To supply with limbs.
  • * , Walden :
    • Man was not made so large limbed and robust but that he must seek to narrow his world and wall in a space such as fitted him.
    (Milton)
    Synonyms
    * delimb

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) limbus , "border".

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (astronomy) The apparent visual edge of a celestial body.
    • solar limb
  • (on a measuring instrument) The graduated edge of a circle or arc.

    • See also

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    Statistics

    * English terms with multiple etymologies