extremity

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The outermost or farthest point or portion.
2. n. The greatest or utmost degree: the extremity of despair.
3. n. Grave danger, necessity, or distress.
4. n. A moment at which death or ruin is imminent.
5. n. An extreme or severe measure.
6. n. A bodily limb or appendage.
7. n. A hand or foot.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The utmost point or side; the end or the verge; the point or border that terminates a thing: as, the extremities of a bridge; the extremities of a lake.
2. n. In anatomy and zoology, a limb or an organ of locomotion; an appendage or appendicular part of the body. The extremities of the vertebrate body are four in number, viz., the arms and legs, divided in man into upper and lower, and in other animals into anterior and posterior extremities.
3. n. The highest degree; the most intense form: as, to suffer the extremity of pain or cruelty.
4. n. Extreme or utmost need, distress, or difficulty; the greatest degree of destitution or helplessness; specifically, death: as, a city besieged and reduced to extremity; man's extremity is God's opportunity.
5. n. plural Extreme measures: as, the commander was compelled to proceed to extremities.
6. n. Synonyms Extremity, End, Extreme, border, termination. Extremity is opposed to middle, end to beginning, and extreme to mean or moderate degree. Extreme is now used only in figurative senses; the others are literal or figurative. Extreme generally indicates that which is excessive, exaggerated, or extravagant: as, he was dressed in the extreme of the fashion; “avoid extremes,” Pope, Essay on Criticism, l. 385. For the direct expression of a great distress, etc., extremity is used, and extreme is rare or obsolete.

Wiktionary

1. n. The most extreme or furthest point of something.
2. n. An extreme measure.
3. n. A hand or foot.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The extreme part; the utmost limit; the farthest or remotest point or part.
2. n. One of locomotive appendages of an animal; a limb; a leg or an arm of man.
3. n. The utmost point; highest degree; most aggravated or intense form.
4. n. The highest degree of inconvenience, pain, or suffering; greatest need or peril; extreme need; necessity.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the outermost or farthest region or point
2. n. the greatest or utmost degree
3. n. an extreme condition or state (especially of adversity or disease)
4. n. that part of a limb that is farthest from the torso
5. n. an external body part that projects from the body