limbo

(lim’b6), x. [Orig. in the phrase in limbo, which is wholly L. (ML.): L. in, in; limbo, abl. of limbus, a border, edge, in ML. a supposed region on the border of hell: see limbus. The prep. in being taken as E., the L. abl. noun came to be used as an EH, noun.] 1, A supposed border-land of hell; a region which has been believed by many to exist on'the borders of hell, and to be the appointed abode of those who have not received the grace of Christ while living, and yet have not deserved the punishments of wilful and impenitent sinners. See the phrases. What! her is thou nogt this vggely noyse, Thes lurdans that in Zymbo dwelle, Thei make menyng of many joies, And must eres grete mirthe thame emell. York Plays, p. 378, 0, what a sympathy of woe is this, As far from help as Limbo is from bli ! Shak., Tit. And., iii. 1, 149, The gate of Dante’s Limbo is left ajar even for the ancient philosophers to slip out. Lowell, Among my Books, 2d ser., p. 113. 2. Any similar region apart from this world. A limbo large and broad, since call’d The Paradise of Fools, Milton, P. L., iii. 495. 3. A prison or other place of confinement; any place where things of little or doubtful value are deposited or thrown aside. He threw it therefore into a limbo of ambiguities, Bushnell, Nature and the Super nat., v. Quarantine is a sort of limbo, without the pale of civilized society. B. Taylor, Lands of the Saracen, p. 23. There is a limbo of curious evidence bearing on the subject of pre-natal influences. O. W. Holmes, Elsie Venner, Pref. Limbo of infants (limbus infantium or in fan tum), in Rom. Cath. and scholastic theol., the appointed place after death of infants who die without receiving baptism.— Limbo of the fathers or of the patriarchs (limbus patrum), the place (the outermost circle of hell) where it has been believed the spirits of the righteous who died before the death of Christ were confined until his descent into hell. It has been identified with the “ prison” of the spirits to whom Christ preached when “put to death in the flesh” (1 Pet. iii. 18-20).