Limb vs Fail - What's the difference?
limb | fail |
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.
To remove the limbs from an animal or tree.
To supply with limbs.
* , Walden :
(astronomy) The apparent visual edge of a celestial body.
(on a measuring instrument) The graduated edge of a circle or arc.
(label) To be unsuccessful.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= (label) Not to achieve a particular stated goal. (Usage note: The direct object of this word is usually an infinitive.)
(label) To neglect.
To cease to operate correctly.
(label) To be wanting to, to be insufficient for, to disappoint, to desert.
* Bible, 1 Kings ii. 4
* 1843 , (Thomas Carlyle), '', book 3, ch. II, ''Gospel of Mammonism
*
, title=The Mirror and the Lamp
, chapter=2 (label) To receive one or more non-passing grades in academic pursuits.
(label) To give a student a non-passing grade in an academic endeavour.
To miss attaining; to lose.
* Milton
To be wanting; to fall short; to be or become deficient in any measure or degree up to total absence.
* Bible, Job xiv. 11
* Shakespeare
(archaic) To be affected with want; to come short; to lack; to be deficient or unprovided; used with of .
* Berke
(archaic) To fall away; to become diminished; to decline; to decay; to sink.
* Milton
(archaic) To deteriorate in respect to vigour, activity, resources, etc.; to become weaker.
(obsolete) To perish; to die; used of a person.
* Shakespeare
(obsolete) To err in judgment; to be mistaken.
* Milton
To become unable to meet one's engagements; especially, to be unable to pay one's debts or discharge one's business obligation; to become bankrupt or insolvent.
(uncountable) (label) Poor quality; substandard workmanship.
(label) A failure (condition of being unsuccessful)
A failure (something incapable of success)
A failure, especially of a financial transaction (a termination of an action).
A failing grade in an academic examination.
As nouns the difference between limb and fail
is that limb is a major appendage of human or animal, used for locomotion (such as an arm, leg or wing) while fail is poor quality; substandard workmanship.As verbs the difference between limb and fail
is that limb is to remove the limbs from an animal or tree while fail is to be unsuccessful.As an adjective fail is
that is a failure.limb
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) lim, from (etyl) . The silent -b began to appear in the late 1500s.Noun
(en noun)Derived terms
* go out on a limbVerb
(en verb)- They limbed the felled trees before cutting them into logs.
- 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
* delimbEtymology 2
From (etyl) limbus , "border".Noun
(en noun)- solar limb
See also
{{ picdic , image=Human body features-nb.svg , detail1= }}Statistics
* English terms with multiple etymologiesfail
English
Verb
(en verb)A new prescription, passage=As the world’s drug habit shows, governments are failing in their quest to monitor every London window-box and Andean hillside for banned plants. But even that Sisyphean task looks easy next to the fight against synthetic drugs. No sooner has a drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one.}}
- There shall not fail thee a man on the throne.
- A poor Irish Widow […] went forth with her three children, bare of all resource, to solicit help from the Charitable Establishments of that City. At this Charitable Establishment and then at that she was refused; referred from one to the other, helped by none; — till she had exhausted them all; till her strength and heart failed her: she sank down in typhus-fever […]
citation, passage=That the young Mr. Churchills liked—but they did not like him coming round of an evening and drinking weak whisky-and-water while he held forth on railway debentures and corporation loans. Mr. Barrett, however, by fawning and flattery, seemed to be able to make not only Mrs. Churchill but everyone else do what he desired. And if the arts of humbleness failed him, he overcame you by sheer impudence.}}
- though that seat of earthly bliss be failed
- The crops failed last year.
- as the waters fail from the sea
- Till Lionel's issue fails , his should not reign.
- If ever they fail of beauty, this failure is not be attributed to their size.
- When earnestly they seek / Such proof, conclude they then begin to fail .
- A sick man fails .
- had the king in his last sickness failed
- Which ofttimes may succeed, so as perhaps / Shall grieve him, if I fail not.
Usage notes
* This is a catenative verb which takes the to infinitive . SeeSynonyms
* (to be unsuccessful) fall on one's faceAntonyms
* (to be unsuccessful) succeedDerived terms
* failure * fail-safeNoun
- The project was full of fail .