handicap

noun

1. a race or other contest in which certain disadvantages or advantages of weight, distance, time, etc., are placed upon competitors to equalize their chances of winning.
2. the disadvantage or advantage itself.
3. any disadvantage that makes success more difficult: The main handicap of our business is lack of capital.
4. Sometimes Offensive. a physical or mental disability making participation in certain of the usual activities of daily living more difficult.

verb (used with object), hand·i·capped, hand·i·cap·ping.

5. to place at a disadvantage; disable or burden: He was handicapped by his injured ankle.
6. to subject to a disadvantageous handicap, as a competitor of recognized superiority.
7. to assign handicaps to (competitors).
8. Sports.
   1. to attempt to predict the winner of (a contest, especially a horse race), as by comparing past performances of the contestants.
   2. to assign odds for or against (any particular contestant) to win a contest or series of contests: He handicapped the Yankees at 2-to-1 to take the series from the Cardinals.

noun

1. something that hampers or hinders
2. 1. a contest, esp a race, in which competitors are given advantages or disadvantages of weight, distance, time, etc, in an attempt to equalize their chances of winning
   2. the advantage or disadvantage prescribed
3. golf the number of strokes by which a player’s averaged score exceeds the standard scratch score for the particular course: used as the basis for handicapping in competitive play
4. any physical disability or disadvantage resulting from physical, mental, or social impairment or abnormality

verb -caps, -capping or -capped (tr)

5. to be a hindrance or disadvantage to
6. to assign a handicap or handicaps to
7. to organize (a contest) by handicapping
8. US and Canadian
   1. to attempt to forecast the winner of (a contest, esp a horse race)
   2. to assign odds for or against (a contestant)

n.

1650s, from hand in cap, a game whereby two bettors would engage a neutral umpire to determine the odds in an unequal contest. The bettors would put their hands holding forfeit money into a hat or cap. The umpire would announce the odds and the bettors would withdraw their hands — hands full meaning that they accepted the odds and the bet was on, hands empty meaning they did not accept the bet and were willing to forfeit the money. If one forfeited, then the money went to the other. If both agreed either on forfeiting or going ahead with the wager, then the umpire kept the money as payment. The custom, though not the name, is attested from 14c. (“Piers Plowman”).

Reference to horse racing is 1754 (Handy-Cap Match), where the umpire decrees the superior horse should carry extra weight as a “handicap;” this led to sense of “encumbrance, disability” first recorded 1890. The main modern sense, “disability,” is the last to develop, early 20c.

v.

“equalize chances of competitors,” 1852, but implied in the horse-race sense from mid-18c., from handicap (n.). Meaning “put at a disadvantage” is from 1864. Earliest verbal sense, now obsolete, was “to gain as in a wagering game” (1640s). Related: Handicapped; handicapping.

n.

1. A physical, mental, or emotional condition that interferes with one’s normal functioning.