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Falter vs Limb - What's the difference?

falter | limb |

As nouns the difference between falter and limb

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

As verbs the difference between falter and limb

is that falter is to waver or be unsteady while limb is to remove the limbs from an animal or tree.

falter

English

Noun

(-)
  • unsteadiness.
  • Verb

    (en verb)
  • To waver or be unsteady.
  • * Wiseman
  • He found his legs falter .
  • (ambitransitive) To stammer; to utter with hesitation, or in a weak and trembling manner.
  • * Byron
  • And here he faltered forth his last farewell.
  • * Milton
  • With faltering speech and visage incomposed.
  • To fail in distinctness or regularity of exercise; said of the mind or of thought.
  • * I. Taylor
  • Here indeed the power of disinct conception of space and distance falters .
  • To stumble.
  • (figuratively) To lose faith or vigor; to doubt or abandon (a cause).
  • *
  • And remember, comrades, your resolution must never falter .
  • To hesitate in purpose or action.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Ere her native king / Shall falter under foul rebellion's arms.
  • To cleanse or sift, as barley.
  • (Halliwell)

    References

    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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