limbo
limbo Lexical Profile
limbo Game Scores & Validity
• noun
An uncertain, intermediate, or unresolved period or state of awaiting a decision or resolution, or a condition of neglect or oblivion to which something is consigned.
"The sudden budget freeze left the entire research project in limbo for several months."
A West Indian dance and contest originating in Trinidad in which the dancer bends backward at the knees and waist to pass under a horizontal bar that is progressively lowered after each round.
"At the summer beach party, the children lined up to try the limbo while steel drum music played."
In traditional Christian theology, the supposed abode of the souls of unbaptized infants, and of the just who died before Christ's coming, situated on the border of Hell.
"Medieval theologians debated the nature of limbo and the fate of righteous figures from antiquity."
• verb
To perform the limbo dance, or to pass underneath a low obstacle by bending backward at the knees and waist.
"She easily limboed under the lowest setting of the pole to win the contest."
• Rhymes for limbo
Word Origin & Etymology
The theological and figurative sense derives from Medieval Latin 'in limbo' (meaning 'on the border'), the ablative form of 'limbus' ('border' or 'hem'), referring to a region on the edge of Hell. The sense of the Caribbean dance arose in the 1950s from West Indian English, likely an alteration of the adjective 'limber' (flexible).