Etymology

hirple

H4I1R1P3L1E1

Today it means: To walk with a limp, to drag a limb, to walk lamely; to move with a gait somewhere between walking and crawling. Full definition →

Old Norse herpast
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The story

  1. Old Norse · derived fromherpast“to suffer from cramp”
  2. English todayhirple

A word of unknown origin, first recorded in Scots sources from the late fifteenth century; but probably from Old Norse herpast (“to suffer from cramp”) the middle voice verb. Compare the Icelandic herpa (“to contract, to draw together”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.