Why this word is great
BELIMB — [Verb] To cut off a limb or limbs; to dismember, mutilate, or disfigure. From Middle English belimien ("to dismember"), equivalent to be- ("off, away") + limb ("a limb of the body"). Unlike "amputate" (which cloaks its violence in sterile precision) or "disfigure" (which suggests defacement rather than severance), "belimb" is raw, ungloved butchery. It is the executioner’s axe biting through sinew, the battlefield scavenger prying a trophy from the dead, or the old fairy-tale witch who demands a hand in payment—each act a brutal subtraction, leaving the body less than whole, and the world a little more cruel.