Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to limp.

1938		D. Runyon ‘Madame La Gimp’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 240: She finally gets through gabbing to him and goes gimping away.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 201: We’d have two tempoes gimping along at the same time.
1952		(con. 1910s) G. Fowler Schnozzola 54: The lame boy neglected to go to school to go with other truants to hang-outs on New York’s East Side, gimping around, as he put it.
1969		L. Schecter Jocks 153: He gimped away, leaning on an eccentrically shaped cane.
1976		N. Thornburg Cutter and Bone (2001) 22: Cutter came gimping through the bathroom’s unlockable door.
1998		Shamrock & Hanner Inside the Lion’s Den 72: Gracie gimped out of the arena, his arms draped on the shoulders of his brothers.
2000		C. Cook Robbers (2001) 10: He gimped past Rule holding out his pants leg.
2005		J. Gullett Good News to the Red Planet 49: The two took off walking (Gideon gimped) on the flat Martian landscape.
2019		S.M. Jones Lives Laid Away [ebook] ‘They see you gimping through the door and they’ll wonder how much you squealed’.

2. to cripple.

1965		in H.S. Thompson Great Shark Hunt (1980) 472: His revolutionary zeal is gimped by pessimism.
2006		J. Ridley What Fire Cannot Burn 90: Three cops dead, one gimped.

3. (US campus, also gimp up) to ruin, to spoil.

1975

G. Underwood ‘Razorback Sl.’ in AS L:1–2 59: I gimped one page and had to start over [...] I really gimped up my material for the dress.