Hypertext Webster Gateway: "Limbo"

From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913)

Limbo \Lim"bo\ (l[i^]m"b[-o]), Limbus \Lim"bus\ (-b[u^]s), n.
[L. limbus border, edge, in limbo on the border. Cf. {Limb}
border.]
1. (Scholastic Theol.) An extramundane region where certain
classes of souls were supposed to await the judgment.

As far from help as Limbo is from bliss. --Shak.

A Limbo large and broad, since called The Paradise
of fools. --Milton.

Note: The limbus patrum was considered as a place for the
souls of good men who lived before the coming of our
Savior. The limbus infantium was said to be a similar
place for the souls of unbaptized infants. To these was
added, in the popular belief, the limbus fatuorum, or
fool's paradise, regarded as a receptacle of all vanity
and nonsense.

2. Hence: Any real or imaginary place of restraint or
confinement; a prison; as, to put a man in limbo.

From WordNet (r) 1.7 (wn)

limbo
n 1: the state of being disregarded or forgotten [syn: {oblivion}]
2: an imaginary place for lost or neglected things
3: (theology) the abode of infants who die before baptism


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