maim

From Middle English maymen, mahaymen, from Anglo-Norman maheimer, mahaigner, of Germanic origin; see mayhem.

• IPA^(key): /eɪm/
• Rhymes: -eɪm

maim (third-person singular simple present maims, present participle maiming, simple past and past participle maimed)

1. To wound seriously; to cause permanent loss of function of a limb or part of the body.
   • 1914, Louis Joseph Vance, chapter I, in Nobody, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 1915, OCLC 40817384:

     Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, comprised the furniture of this roof-garden, with (by way of local colour) on 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.

• mutilate

• maimer

maim (plural maims)

1. (obsolete) A bruise, lameness, or other injury.

• I'mma, Imma, Mami, imam, imma

From Proto-Tocharian *meim, a nominal derivative of *mei- (“to measure”). Possibly linked to Proto-Indo-European *mod-ye/o- or *mēdye/o-, derivatives of *med- (“to measure, give advice, heal”) (whence Latin meditor and Old Irish midithir), or alternatively to *meh₁-ye/o- from *meh₁- (“to measure”) (whence Latin mētior). Compare Tocharian A mem.

maim

1. thought, thinking

   enenkaś paspārtau cwi maim palskw attsaik

   completely turned inward [is] his thought and spirit