crippling

English

Verb

crippling

present participle and gerund of cripple

Adjective

crippling (comparative more crippling, superlative most crippling)

That cripples or incapacitates
crippling depression
Causing a severe and insurmountable problem; detrimental.
The high cost of capital has a crippling effect on many small firms.
- 1955 April, “Notes and News: Restoring the Festiniog Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 288:
  The company, appreciating the crippling affect ^[sic] that this scheme will have on its activities unless the railway is diverted, has petitioned against the North Wales Hydro-Electric Power Bill at present before the House of Lords.
Causing serious injuries, damage, or harm; damaging.
crippling debt

Derived terms

cripplingly

Translations

that cripples

Dutch: verlammend (nl)
Finnish: rampauttava
Hungarian: bénító (hu)

Noun

crippling (plural cripplings)

State of being crippled; lameness.
(Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) Spars or timbers set up as a support against the side of a building.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “crippling”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)