Advertisement

Advertisement

View synonyms for lame duck

lame duck

[ leym duhk ]

noun

  1. an elected official or group of officials, as a legislator, continuing in office during the period between an election defeat and a successor's assumption of office.
  2. a president who is completing a term of office and chooses not to run or is ineligible to run for reelection.
  3. a person finishing a term of employment after a replacement has been chosen.
  4. anything soon to be supplanted by another that is more efficient, economical, etc.
  5. a person or thing that is helpless, ineffective, or inefficient.
  6. a person who has lost a great deal of money in speculations on the stock market.


lame duck

noun

  1. a person or thing that is disabled or ineffectual
  2. stock exchange a speculator who cannot discharge his liabilities
  3. a company with a large workforce and high prestige that is unable to meet foreign competition without government support
    1. an elected official or body of officials remaining in office in the interval between the election and inauguration of a successor
    2. ( as modifier )

      a lame-duck president

  4. modifier designating a term of office after which the officeholder will not run for re-election
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

lame duck

  1. A public official or administration serving out a term in office after having been defeated for reelection or when not seeking reelection.
Discover More

Other Words From

  • lame-duck adjective
Discover More

Word History and Origins

Origin of lame duck1

First recorded in 1755–65
Discover More

Idioms and Phrases

An elected officeholder whose term of office has not yet expired but who has failed to be re-elected and therefore cannot garner much political support for initiatives. For example, You can't expect a lame duck President to get much accomplished; he's only got a month left in office . This expression originated in the 1700s and then meant a stockbroker who did not meet his debts. It was transferred to officeholders in the 1860s. The Lame Duck Amendment , 20th to the U.S. Constitution, calls for Congress and each new President to take office in January instead of March (as before), thereby eliminating the lame-duck session of Congress.
Discover More

Example Sentences

He’s not a free agent, but he’s on the verge of becoming a lame duck.

“Washington is a lame duck, and Israel is largely free, from now to Jan. 20, of U.S. pressure,” said Firas Maksad, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington.

That means one more bad season would be his last season, which means he would become a lame duck.

"The US at this COP is not just a lame duck, it's a dead duck," said Prof Richard Klein of the Stockholm Environment Institute, an expert on climate change policy.

From BBC

But others say those improvements were squandered after Cedillo became a lame duck and later got caught up in the City Hall scandal involving racist comments heard on a secretly captured audio recording.

Advertisement

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement


lamedlame-duck session