hobble

1. 1.

   a shackle for the ankles or feet

   Synonymsfetter

   Broadershackle
2. 2.

   the uneven manner of walking that results from an injured leg

   Synonymshitchlimp

   Broadergait

Other forms of hobble

plural

hobbles·

past tense

hobbled·

present participle

hobbling·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about hobble

What does hobble mean?

hobble means "walk impeded by some physical limitation or injury". That is the primary sense; the word has 5 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in hobble?

hobble has 2 syllables: hob-ble. The stress falls on "hob". In IPA it is /ˈhɑbəl/.

What is another word for hobble?

Close synonyms include limp, gimp, hitch, hopple, fetter. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is hobble a common word?

hobble is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.