[L., abl. sing. of limbus (see LIMBUS), occurring in such phrases as in or e (= in or out of) limbo. Cf. It. limbo and LIMB sb.2]
1. A region supposed to exist on the border of Hell as the abode of the just who died before Christ’s coming, and of unbaptized infants.
More explicitly limbo patrum, limbo infantum or of the infants: see LIMBUS.
13[?]. St. Erkenwolde, 291, in Horstm., Altengl. Leg. (1881), 272. Quene þou herghedes helle-hole & hentes hom þer-oute,… oute of limbo, þou laftes me þer.
[1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. XVI. 84. The deuel … Bar hem forth boldely … And made of holy men his horde in lymbo inferni.]
c. 1450. Mirour Saluacioun, 198. How crist entred hell To glad our haly fadres in Lymbo as clerkes tell.
c. 1460. Towneley Myst., xxv. 96. Thise lurdans that in lymbo dwell. Ibid., 213. Lymbo is lorne, alas!
1483. Caxton, G. de la Tour, D vj b. After her deth she [Eve] … fylle in a derke and obscure pryson … that was the lymbo of helle.
1526. Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 53 b. After theyr deth they went to lymbo patrum a place of derkenes nye to hell.
1528. Tindale, Obed. Chr. Man, To Rdr. 19. Of what texte thou provest hell, will a nother prove purgatory, a nother lymbo patrum.
1605. Heywood, Troub. Q. Eliz., Wks. 1874, I. 221. I am freed from limbo, to be sent to hell.
a. 1658. Cleveland, Wks. (1687), 81. ’Tis a just Idea of a Limbo of the Infants.
1749. Wesley, Wks. (1872), X. 101. In what condition were they [the Old Testament Saints] while thus detained in limbo?
1818. Moore, Fudge Fam. Paris, 57. Souls in Limbo, damn’d half way.
1857–8. Sears, Athan., xviii. 163. If a spiritual body is desirable at all, why are the saints kept waiting for it in limbo?
b. in extended use (see quots.).
1643. Sir T. Browne, Relig. Med., I. § 54. Methinks amongst those many subdivisions of Hell, there might have been one Limbo left for these.
1667. Milton, P. L., III. 495. All these upwhirld aloft Fly o’re the backside of the World farr off Into a Limbo large and broad, since calld The Paradise of Fools.
1712. Addison, Spect., No. 297, ¶ 7. The Picture which he [Milton] draws of the Limbo of Vanity.
1851. Carlyle, Sterling, III. i. (1872), 163. As yet my books are lying as ghost books, in a limbo on the banks of a certain Bristolian Styx.
† c. used gen. for: Hell, Hades. Obs.
1581. T. Howell, Devises, D iij b. And let my Ghost in Lymbo lowe be led, To Tantals thyrst, or prowde Ixions wheele.
1582. Stanyhurst, Æneis, II. (Arb.), 56. And with hoat assalting too Limbo we plunged a number [L. multos demittimus Orco].
1612. Proceedings of Virginia, v. 30, in Capt. Smith’s Wks. (Arb.), 111. These vninhabited Iles; which (for the extremitie of gusts, thunder, raine, stormes, and il weather) we called Limbo.
1634. W. Tirwhyt, trans. Balzac’s Lett., 270. She hath filled Limbo with her paricidiall leachery.
a. 1637. B. Jonson, Baccanall Tri., 50, in T. Morton’s New Eng. Canaan (1637), 147. Minos, Eacus and Radamand, Princes of Limbo.
2. transf. and fig. a. Prison, confinement, durance; also, † pawn. slang.
1590. Greene, Neuer too late (1600), 56. If coyne want, then eyther to Limbo, or else clap vp a commodity.
1590. Shaks., Com. Err., IV. ii. 32. Ibid. (1613), etc., Hen. VIII., V. iv. 67. I haue some of ’em in Limbo Patrum.
1649. Evelyn, Mem. (1857), III. 51. So that John is now faster in Limbo than Ever.
1664. Butler, Hud., II. i. 100. On she went, To find the Knight in Limbo pent.
1687. Congreve, Old Bach., II. i. I let him have all my ready Mony to redeem his great Sword from Limbo.
1798. Beresford, in Ld. Auckland’s Corr. (1862), III. 441–2. We have colonels and lieutenant-colonels, and majors and captains enough in limbo.
1843. Carlyle, Past & Pr., II. viii. Monks … must not speak too loud, under penalty of foot-gyves, limbo, and bread and water.
1849. Cobden, Speeches, 84. Men of bad character, who have been put into limbo, or flogged.
1881. Besant & Rice, Chapl. of Fleet, I. x. (1883), 79. There were, besides the residents…, poets not yet in limbo.
b. Any unfavorable place or condition, likened to Limbo; esp. a condition of neglect or oblivion to which persons or things are consigned when regarded as outworn, useless or absurd.
1642. Milton, Apol. Smect., Wks. 1851, III. 275. I am met with a whole ging of words and phrases not mine, for he hath … mangl’d them in this his wicked Limbo.
1728. Pope, Dunc., I. 238. O! pass more innocent, in infant state, To the mild Limbo of our Father Tate.
1828. Moore (title), Limbo of Lost Reputations.
1866. J. Martineau, Ess., I. 60. Comte … dismisses religion into limbo.
1874. Motley, Barneveld, II. xiii. 89. The purpose of the House of Austria was … to send the Golden Bull itself to the limbo of worn-out constitutional devices.
1894. J. Knight, Garrick, ix. 164. The piece … ran for eleven nights before descending into the limbo of oblivion.
3. attrib., as † limbo-dungeon; limbo-like adj.; † limbo-lake, the ‘pit’ of Hell (cf. LAKE sb.4 3).
1555–8. Phaër, Æneid, III. G iv b. For Cyrces yle must furst be seen, and lands of Lymbo lake [L. infernique lacus].
1590. Spenser, F. Q., I. ii. 32. What voice of damned Ghost from Limbo lake.
1696. Toland, Christianity not Myst., 27. They should not say they are in Limbo-Dungeon.
1748. Thomson, Cast. Indol., 458. His father’s ghost from limbo-lake, the while, Sees this.
1820. Scott, Abbot, xvi. From haunted spring and grassy ring, Troop goblin, elf, and fairy;… To Limbo-lake, Their way they take.
1848. Geo. Eliot, in Cross, Life (1835), I. 179. I am even now … in a very shattered, limbo-like mental condition.
