Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A narrow flat braid or rounded cord of fabric used for trimming. Also called guimpe, guipure.
- n. A limp or a limping gait.
- n. A person who limps.
- v. To walk with a limp.
- n. Spirit; pep.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A coarse thread used in some kinds of pillow-lace to form the edges or outlines of the design.
- n. A flat trimming made of silk, worsted, or other cord, usually stiffened by wire and more or less open in design, used for borders for curtains or furniture, trimming for women's gowns, etc.
- To make or furnish with gimp.
- To jag; denticulate.
- Another spelling of jimp.
- n. In angling, a line in which fine wire is woven, or which is bound or wound with wire to increase its strength.
- To weave or bind wire into a fabric or cord to stiffen it.
Wiktionary
- n. informal A person who is lame due to a crippling of the legs or feet.
- n. informal A crippled leg.
- n. informal A limp or a limping gait.
- n. slang, derogatory A name-calling word, generally for a person who is perceived to be inept, deficient or peculiar
- n. BDSM A sexual submissive, almost always male, dressed generally in a black leather suit. See Gimp (sadomasochism) in Wikipedia.
- v. informal To limp; to hobble.
- n. A narrow ornamental fabric or braid of silk, wool, or cotton, often stiffened with metallic wire or coarse cord running through it, used as trimming for dresses, curtains, furniture, etc. Also guimpe.
- n. Any coarse or reinforced thread, such as a glazed thread employed in lacemaking to outline designs, or silk thread used as a fishing leader, protected from the bite of fish by a wrapping of fine wire.
- n. The plastic cord used in the plaiting and knotting craft Scoubidou (lanyard making); or, the process itself.
- n. dated Gumption; spirit; ambition; vigor; pep.
- v. of yarn, etc. To wrap or wind (surround) with another length of yarn or wire in a tight spiral, often by means of a gimping machine, creating gimped yarn, etc. Also, generally, to wrap or twist with string or wire. See gimped.
- v. dated To notch or indent; to jag or make jagged; to edge with serrations or grooves.
- adj. dated, Scotland and N England Neat; trim; delicate; slender; handsome; spruce; elegant.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Obs. or Prov. Eng. Smart; spruce; trim; nice.
- n. A narrow ornamental fabric of silk, woolen, or cotton, often with a metallic wire, or sometimes a coarse cord, running through it; -- used as trimming for dresses, furniture, etc.
- v. To notch; to indent; to jag.
WordNet 3.0
- v. walk impeded by some physical limitation or injury
- n. disability of walking due to crippling of the legs or feet
Etymologies
- Scots. Alternate form of jimp. Compare Welsh gwymp ("fair, neat, comely"). (Wiktionary)
- Perhaps from French guimpe; see guimpe.Origin unknown. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“It could be that the gimp is wearing the ONLY stab vest that patrol has.”
“While teh gimp is sometimes funny, teh pwnzor, teh plox!”
“Ugh i hate how brushes work in gimp, its so damn difficult to setup a dynamic resize and they dont match the size correctly. schragnasher”
EXTRALIFE – By Scott Johnson - A cool alternative to Photoshop
“And for all my graphic stuff I ended up with a mac, gimp is pretty good, f-spot also works, but adobe stuff is just a different league (pricewise for sure, if it weren’t for student versions I never would spend so much money on software)”
“Probably because he's never played a dying gimp, which is what the Oscars look for when heaping kudos onto actors.”
“The gimp is a white linen collar, very deep in front.”
“He gave her a history of the place, of Parker (the "gimp" grandson) Olafson's backwater deals and his wife's infidelities, of Louisiana boys pickled by sun and water, found in the glades.”
“Newsarama recently visited the set and broke these first official stills of Aaron Johnson looking like some kind of gimp ninja.”
“And it just hit me last night that the woman who is the "gimp" played Blair's MS cousin on "Facts of Life".”
“If I had had a little more 'gimp' and _verve_, I might have equalled the particular young gentleman of whom we have been discoursing.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘gimp’.
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SMILE and other emotive verbs
Single verbs that describe expression or emotional reaction. "He __ed" (smiled/gulped/scoffed...)
smile, beam, sneer, scoff, giggle, laugh, snigger, scowl, grin, leer, wince, grimace and 97 more...
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old timey talk
Words or Sayings from the 1920's or whatever that no one really uses anymore (at least in that context).
scram, bearcat, heavens to betsy, dick, double-cross, ducky, gams, goofy, hooch, jalopy, john, joe and 174 more...
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Lace
Terms pertaining to lace and lace-making. Patterns, tools, types, styles, stitches.
bone lace, pillow lace, point, needlelace, bobbin lace, bones, bobbin, linen thread, hand-lacemaking, lace pillow, bobbinet, lacemakers' guild and 256 more...
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Twine
sisal, cotton, jute, hemp, coir, henequin, baler, binder, polypropylene, twine, gimp, marline and 10 more...
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test2029
humblebrag, foo, bar, hotel, california, FO, Mint, aw, Shiznit, sexy, BUMMERS, Boo and 29 more...
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Twitter faves
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favourite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
gonk, nerking, guap, gimp, fabulous, dabble, fabilicious, tragic, zooted, hey, cheekini, nugget and 457 more... -
Twitter favourites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favourite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
bumwank, calamity, recalcitrant, gayenese, jeeze, nonsense, flabbergasted, juxtapose, procrastinating, ossanity, biffing, loser and 1972 more... -
imogen's Words
coagitate, cloche, harum-scarum, foxglove, cryptolect, cant, roux, angora, duff, ulysse, schadenfreude, pepperpot and 315 more...
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Vocab
Words that I come across, and go blank, or want to clarify.
nefarious, edifice, malevolent, ostensible, folderol, bauble, livid, amnesty, calculus, saddlery, maisonette, cuisse and 423 more...
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justin's Words
braii, boerewors, lekker, viva, pap, lipodystrophy, lacticacidosis, sharp, chakalaka, defaulter, eish, oof and 256 more...
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passementerie
twist, passementerie, gimp, jag, braid, rock rack, rickrack, pəshar
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dienekes's Words
chutzpah, lexicon, intrepid, pedagogical, schlemiel, schism, erudite, anathema, pugilist, jaunty, paradigm, automaton and 949 more...
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Scriptie: The Shakespearean Language ...
It isn't all about fucking cocksuckers. There aren't too many shows on TV that use Wordie words. (So of course it was cancelled.)
Best viewed in cloud format.sweggen, hooplehead, cocksucker, dope, yankton, camp, pussy, bonanza, laudanum, chinaman, hoecake, free gratis and 210 more...
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Underworld
Don DeLillo
roily, reverie, slidy, bandido, mohair, brilliantine, stupe, juke step, jowly, juke, wicket, quidbit and 391 more...
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seanahan's Words
lacustrine, indubitably, masala, balustrade, arcane, gambit, bagatelle, demonstrative, epicaricacy, cacophony, archetype, picaresque and 418 more...
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Nicknames for My Dogs
They have perfectly suitable doggy names. We just call them other things sometimes.
el pero negro, jerk, frankenpuppy, galumphing idiot, wankerdog, boss dog, weiner dog, miss lugubrious, bitch, who's-a-goo'-boy, who's-a-goo'-girl, freak and 29 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for gimp.

qroqqa . . . for I'm a fisher of men and my gimp is doing a saltarello over every body of water to fetch up what it may.
—Djuna Barnes, Nightwood
If I may hazard a guess at what on earth Barnes is putting into the mouth of her maniac doctor, this is OED gimp n.1, sense 2., 'A fishing-line composed of silk, etc., bound with wire to strengthen it.'
Nov 21, 2008
yarb "She could not reconcile the anxieties of a spiritual life involving eternal consequences, with a keen interest in gimp and artificial protrusions of drapery."
- Middlemarch, George Eliot Feb 12, 2008
sonofgroucho Gimp runs on Windows and the Mac OS too, although I haven't tried it. Jan 11, 2008
mollusque Flattened lengths of plastic cord braided together in children's craft projects using the crown sinnet knot. Jan 11, 2008
seanahan I'm not sure which usage I like the best. The Linux image program, the search for large prime numbers, or the character from Pulp Fiction. Feb 4, 2007