DICT.TW Dictionary Taiwan

 Lame a. [Compar. Lamer superl. Lamest.]
 1. (a) Moving with pain or difficulty on account of injury, defect, or temporary obstruction of a function; as, a lame leg, arm, or muscle. (b) To some degree disabled by reason of the imperfect action of a limb; crippled; as, a lame man. “Lame of one leg.” --Arbuthnot. “Lame in both his feet.” --2 Sam. ix. 13. “He fell, and became lame.” --2 Sam. iv. 4.
 2. Hence, hobbling; limping; inefficient; imperfect; as, a lame answer. “A lame endeavor.”
    O, most lame and impotent conclusion!   --Shak.
 Lame duck (a) Stock Exchange, a person who can not fulfill his contracts. [Cant]  (b) An elected politician who is completing a term after having been defeated at an election; also, an office holder who cannot or chooses not to run again for the same office; -- So called from the presumed lack of political power of one who is soon to be out of office. (b) Any office holder who is serving out a term after a replacement has been selected.

 Duck, n.
 1. Zool. Any bird of the subfamily Anatinæ, family Anatidæ.
 Note: ☞ The genera and species are numerous. They are divided into river ducks and sea ducks. Among the former are the common domestic duck (Anas boschas); the wood duck (Aix sponsa); the beautiful mandarin duck of China (Dendronessa galeriliculata); the Muscovy duck, originally of South America (Cairina moschata). Among the sea ducks are the eider, canvasback, scoter, etc.
 2. A sudden inclination of the bead or dropping of the person, resembling the motion of a duck in water.
 Here be, without duck or nod,
 Other trippings to be trod.   --Milton.
 Bombay duck Zool., a fish. See Bummalo.
 Buffel duck, Spirit duck. See Buffel duck.
 Duck ant Zool., a species of white ant in Jamaica which builds large nests in trees.
 Duck barnacle. Zool. See Goose barnacle.
 Duck hawk. Zool. (a) In the United States: The peregrine falcon. (b) In England: The marsh harrier or moor buzzard.
 Duck mole Zool., a small aquatic mammal of Australia, having webbed feet and a bill resembling that of a duck (Ornithorhynchus anatinus). It belongs the subclass Monotremata and is remarkable for laying eggs like a bird or reptile; -- called also duckbill, platypus, mallangong, mullingong, tambreet, and water mole.
 To make ducks and drakes, to throw a flat stone obliquely, so as to make it rebound repeatedly from the surface of the water, raising a succession of jets; hence: To play at ducks and drakes, with property, to throw it away heedlessly or squander it foolishly and unprofitably.
 Lame duck. See under Lame.
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 lame duck
      n : an elected official still in office but not slated to
          continue