lame duck

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#1·11h ago

(colloquial) A person or thing that is helpless, inefficient, or disabled.

Origin: Equivalent to . First use appears c. 1761, in the London Evening Post. Derived from the situation in which a person who had defaulted in the London Stock Exchange was said to waddle out of Exchange Alley like a lame duck. Verbal form first appears c. 1910. Origin information sourced from Wiktionary contributors (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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#2·11h ago

(US, politics) marking time]] until leaving office.

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#3·11h ago

(finance, slang, dated) A person who cannot fulfill their contracts.

Congressman Jones was a lame duck and did not vote on many issues that were important to his constituents.

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