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Glite Dictionary
🦵 Back thigh muscle ⛔ To block 🚫 To cripple
to hamstring

to hamstring

8.8
To cut the tendons at the back of a leg to make the leg unable to move
  • verb
  • /ˈhæmstrɪŋ/
  • Offensive
translation icon : cortar el tendón de la corva
  • This Prime Minister is hamstrung, divided, desperate and looking defeated in a total panic.

Examples

  • In an attempt to escape, she accidentally hamstring her chances of succeeding.

  • He was hamstrung by the unexpected loss of funding for his project.

  • They were going to kill him for hamstringing a guard.

    Spartacus (1960)

  • Oedipus, well at his birth, is hamstrung and exposed on Mount Kithran.

  • The attacker tried to hamstring his opponent with a single precise strike.

Synonyms

to cramp
vsto hamstring
20 4.0

To limit growth and movement of people or things

refers to a severe disabling injury caused by cutting a leg tendon
to cripple
vsto hamstring
  • NSFW
11 6.8

To make a person lose the use of a limb, often a leg

describes causing this loss by cutting the tendon at the back of the leg

Antonyms

to heal
481 1.2

To become healthy again after an injury, illness, or emotional pain

to enable
459 2.3

To give someone the ability or chance to do something

Compounds

hamstring injury
  • Specialized
3 2.8

Damage to the muscles at the back of the thigh that causes pain when you move

hamstring tendon
  • Specialized
3.8

A strong band at the back of the knee that joins thigh muscles to the leg bone

How Disabling

to cripple
  • NSFW
11 6.8
to hamstring
  • Offensive
8.8
to disable
87 3.5
to injure
53 1.6
wound
971 2.2
to bruise
102 2.6

Surface Forms

hamstring infinitive
hamstringing present participle
hamstrings third person singular
hamstrung past
hamstrung past participle

Morphology

hamstring = ham + string (opaque) = ham + string

Although the word is historically built from 'ham' and 'string', the anatomical meaning is not readily recoverable for an average B1 learner.

Etymology

Hamstring originally meant to cut the ham which means 'back of the knee' and the string which is the tendon so a person or animal could not run, and this was used as a cruel punishment in the past.