the.com/limbo
the only game where you win by sinking lower than everyone else
means A state of uncertain waiting or in-between suspension where nothing is resolved — also the dance-game of bending backward to pass under a steadily lowering bar.
from Two threads twist together here. The 'in-between' sense comes from Latin 'limbus,' meaning an edge, hem, or border — the Church placed Limbo at the very rim of Hell, a borderland for souls neither saved nor damned. The dance is a separate, later arrival, traced to Trinidad in the West Indies, where 'limbo' is generally taken as a variant of 'limber,' meaning supple or loose-jointed — fitting for a body bending under that bar.
- origin
- Born in 1950s Trinidad funeral dances
- record bar
- World record clears under 6 inches
- theology
- Catholic Church quietly dropped it in 2007
- physics
- Demands backbend most spines outright refuse
- meaning
- Latin limbus means edge or border
limbo rock song — 1961 novelty hit by chubby checker that sparked the global limbo dancing craze