Other forms: hobbled, hobbling, hobbles
To hobble is to walk with difficulty in small painful steps. A twisted ankle, or a stick and a bad hip.
The word describes the gait rather than the cause, and it always implies pain or injury rather than mere slowness. It takes about, along or off. There is a second and older sense with a rope in it, since hobbling a horse means tying its legs loosely so it can graze without wandering, and from that comes the figurative use, where regulations can hobble a business.
Proto-Indo-European
*ḱewb-
Middle English
hobblen
English, today
hobble
From Middle English hobblen, hobelen, akin to Middle Dutch hoblen, hobbelen (Modern Dutch hobbelen), Middle High German hoppeln (“to hop, limp, hobble”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove, Ways of Moving
First appears in chapter 34 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word