limbo [LME] In some versions of Christian theology limbo is the abode, on the border of hell, of the souls of unbaptized infants and of just people who died before Christ’s coming. The word represents a form of Latin limbus ‘edge, hem, border’. From the late 16th century it developed uses such as ‘an uncertain period of awaiting a decision’ and ‘a state of neglect or oblivion’. There is no linguistic connection with the West Indian dance the limbo recorded from the 1950s, which is an alteration of limber [M16th] ‘lithe, supple’.