Cripple /(krĭp"p'l)/

1. One who creeps, halts, or limps; one who has lost, or never had, the use of a limb or limbs; a lame person; hence, one who is partially disabled.

   I am a cripple in my limbs; but what decays are in my mind, the reader must determine.

1. Swampy or low wet ground, often covered with brush or with thickets; bog. [Local. U. S.]

   The flats or cripple land lying between high- and low-water lines, and over which the waters of the stream ordinarily come and go.

2. A rocky shallow in a stream; -- a lumberman's term.

1. Lame; halting. [R.]

imp. & p. p. Crippled; p. pr. & vb. n. Crippling

1. To deprive of the use of a limb, particularly of a leg or foot; to lame.

   He had crippled the joints of the noble child.

2. To deprive of strength, activity, or capability for service or use; to disable; to deprive of resources; as, to be financially crippled.

   More serious embarrassments . . . were crippling the energy of the settlement in the Bay.

   An incumbrance which would permanently cripple the body politic.