maim

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English maimen, also maynen and mahaime,^[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman mahaigner, also maheimer and maigner,^[4][5] from Old French mahaignier (“to maim, injure”), recorded from about 1160.^{[4][6][7][8][9]} The forms with -m- are distinctively Anglo-Norman and Norman.^[4] The noun is inherited from Middle English maime,^[2] borrowed from Anglo-Norman mahaim, also mahain, from Old French mehaing (“mutilation”),^[4][10] and Ayto holds that it changed the Middle English verb from a form in -n to one in -m.^[11] The further origin is uncertain.^{[4][6][8][12]} Beside the French verb stand Medieval Latin mahemium (“mayhem, maiming”), recorded from the late 12th century, Old Occitan maganhar (“to weaken”) and Italian magagnare (“to spoil, harm”), with magagna (“defect, infirmity”).^[4] Hoad and Ayto start from a Vulgar Latin or Proto-Romance verb, Vulgar Latin *mahagnō, of unknown origin.^[8][11] The OED says a Germanic source is commonly postulated,^[4] Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Collins call one probable and Barnhart possible.^[3][13][9] Cited comparisons are Middle High German meidem (“gelding”) in Merriam-Webster Unabridged, Old Norse meiða (“to hurt”) in Barnhart, and Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐌼𐌰𐌹𐌸𐍃 (gamaiþs, “crippled”) in both.^[3][9] Etymonline mentions Proto-Germanic *mait- and Proto-Indo-European *mai- (“to cut”) as possibilities.^[6] Weekley asked whether a form with mes-, a pejorative prefix from Latin minus, was the original.^[14] Mayhem began as a variant of the noun, and mangle probably comes from the same French verb.^[4][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

As a noun, a lasting wound or bodily injury: before 1325, in the Statutes of the Realm.^[4] As a verb, to wound or disable: about 1325, in the Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, of people falling when a floor gave way, some killed, some "ymaymed", some hurt.^[4][2] Etymonline and Barnhart date the verb to about 1300, the date of the chronicle's composition.^[6][9]

Semantic evolution

At first the verb was broad: it could mean to injure seriously, to damage or destroy a thing, to castrate, to afflict with disease, and even to deprive someone of a realm.^[2][6] It narrowed to depriving someone of a limb or its use,^[4] the sense of the old law, in which a person so maimed was less able to fight.^[6] Chaucer has the figurative "make essentially incomplete" about 1395,^[4][15] and Johnson (1755) defined the verb as to deprive of any necessary part, to cripple by loss of a limb, quoting Shakespeare's "you maim'd the jurisdiction of all bishops".^[16] The noun lost ground: Ayto says it has died out,^[11] the OED's examples of "loss of a limb" end in 1876 and those of "grave defect" in 1758,^[4] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Collins mark it obsolete.^[3][13] Its legal use survived separately as mayhem, and the two came to be treated as separate words only after considerable overlap in form.^[4] The rare the maim, maimed people as a class, is recorded from before 1500.^[4][10]

Timeline

• before 1325 – noun, a lasting wound or bodily injury.^[4]
• c. 1325 – verb, to disable, wound, disfigure.^[4][2] Etymonline and Barnhart date it to about 1300.^[6][9]
• c. 1390 – noun, loss or disablement of a limb, in Chaucer's Parson's Tale (obsolete by 1876).^[4]
• c. 1395 – verb, figurative, to damage or make powerless, in Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale.^[4][15]
• before 1500 – noun, figurative, a grave defect (obsolete by 1758); also a maimed person.^[4]
• 1653 – adjective, maimed (obsolete by 1881).^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To wound seriously, especially so as to take away the use of a limb or other body part; to mutilate, cripple or disfigure: The blast maimed two of the miners for life.^{[7][3][13][17]}
2. To make imperfect or defective; to impair: The new rules have maimed the committee's powers.^[7][13][17]
3. To commit the felony of mayhem upon someone.^[3]

Noun

1. (obsolete, c. 1390–1876) Loss of a limb or of its use; a serious bodily injury.^[3][17][4]
2. (obsolete, before 1500–1758) A serious defect or blemish.^[3][13][4]

Word family

• maimer
• maimedness
• unmaimed

Related words

• mayhem
• mangle

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
6. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
15. ^ a b Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House