a lame duck

lame duck

1. Someone or something that needs help. The company started as a lame duck that was saved by an innovative entrepreneur who decided to take some risks and go in a new direction.
2. An elected official serving their last term in office, usually so-called after a successor has been elected. The opposing party was angry at the president's intention to name a Supreme Court replacement while he was a lame duck.
See also: duck, lame
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

a lame duck

COMMON
1. If a politician or a government is a lame duck, they have little real power, for example because their period of office is coming to an end. The government is headed by a president who looks like a lame duck. The last thing people needed was to feel that the government was a lame duck. Note: You can also use lame-duck before a noun. He's already seen widely as a lame-duck Prime Minister. He would have found himself leading a lame-duck administration to near-certain defeat.
2. If someone or something is a lame duck, they are in a very weak position and in need of support. The company has completed its transformation from the lame duck of the motor industry into a quality car maker. Moira considers all single people lame ducks. Note: You can also use lame-duck before a noun. It is not right to use taxpayers' money to support lame-duck industries. Note: This expression is usually used to criticize someone or something. Note: The image here is of a duck that has been shot and wounded, and so cannot move properly and is likely to die.
See also: duck, lame
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed.

a ˌlame ˈduck

(informal) a person or an organization that is not very successful and needs help: My uncle is a bit of a lame duck. The family has to help him all the time. The shipping industry had become a lame duck.
See also: duck, lame
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary

lame duck, a

A person finishing a term of office, employment, or other engagement, and soon to be supplanted by another. This term had quite another meaning in eighteenth-century Britain. Then it denoted a stock-exchange jobber (broker) who could not pay his debts and therefore was struck from the members’ list, forced to “waddle away” from the Exchange. In the nineteenth century, however, the term began to be used for any ineffectual person, on both sides of the Atlantic. Some decades thereafter it began to be used in its present meaning in the United States, that is, for government officials who have failed to be reelected but must serve out their term of office, even though their endeavors are hampered because they are about to be replaced.
See also: lame
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer
See also:
  • lame duck
  • lame duck, a
  • help a lame dog over a stile
  • helping
  • lame
  • be ahead of (someone's or something's) time
  • ay
  • ay up me duck
  • be duck soup
  • greatest thing since sliced bread
References in periodicals archive
Before control of Congress passes to the Democrats in January, the 109th Congress will return to Washington this week for a lame duck session to complete work on unfinished business, including action on domestic spending.
109th Congress to return for unfinished business: domestic spending on the agenda for lame duck session
She wanted me to help her companion, a lame duck, get outside, as he had trouble getting over a step.
One smart duck
He said he will not be a lame duck, but "will continue to give this my very best between now and the General Synod."
Archbishop Hutchison to step down in 2007
TORY Assembly leader Nick Bourne will claim first minister Rhodri Morgan has "lost his golden touch" and is a lame duck leader.
WALES: Morgan now lame duck, say Tories
Bush appears to have become a lame duck earlier than expected.
Japanese editorial excerpts -2-
Many feared that the desire to obtain new employment once service in Congress ended--voluntarily or involuntarily--would influence the votes of an outgoing Senator or Representative." (70) Ratification of the twentieth amendment was universally expected to end the possibility of legislation being enacted by a lame duck Congress.
The lame ducks of Marbury
Even as a lame duck, William Jefferson Clinton effortlessly assumes the swaggering stride of a mobster, brushing off questions any public servant is morally bound to answer.
President Scarface
This year, President Clinton proclaimed June "Gay Pride Month." Amazing what a lame duck President can do.
Almost Out of Come-Outs
"Magiging lame duck yan (He will become a lame duck) at the midway point [of the 18th Congress].
Duterte to become a 'lame duck' soon, says opposition solons
The DP by his conduct makes Uhuru a lame duck president,' Orengo said in Mombasa yesterday.
Orengo says Ruto is busy sabotaging Uhuru's legacy
He insisted that the GCG was not a lame duck commission for having no power to stop the grant of these bonuses, much less reverse an authorization issued by a previous president for the grant of new benefits.
GOCC oversight body washes hands of bonuses
"There is nothing special or different about a lame duck. It's a session of the U.S.
Senate rejects disability treaty
Ironically, they did much to make sure he was labelled a lame duck Prime Minister.
Reid's battle still goes on; RecordView
In countries like Britain, France, and Israel, new governments can take over the day after an election; in the U.S., it's two-and-a-half months between Election Day and Inauguration Day, with the sitting President often referred to as a lame duck: Regardless of how popular or unpopular he is, a President with less than three months left in office is going to see his authority and influence diminish significantly.
The handoff: from 43 to 44: George W. Bush is still President until January 20, but as a "lame duck" his influence is greatly diminished. Why does the U.S. have this long transition and what are the implications at a time of economic crisis?
McLeod has one year remaining on his three-year deal, but Dempsey believes he is now a lame duck
FOOTBALL: McLEOD UNDER A CLOUD