A stance, with the hands on the hips and elbows directed
outwards. 'Akimbo' is one of those odd words, like the 'aback'
of 'taken aback' and 'fell' of 'one fell swoop', that is rarely
used other than in its customary phrase - although there has
been a spate of uses of 'legs akimbo' recently, since the UK
comedy team The League of Gentlemen used that as the name of a
spoof theatre troupe. The 'arms akimbo' stance generally
indicates that combination of impatience and defiance which is
these days called 'attitude'. That is well exemplified in this
design for a statue of the US politician Barbara Jordan.
'Akimbo' began life as 'kenebowe' and the first known recording
of it is in the Tale of Beryn, circa 1400, or The Second
Merchant's Tale. This piece, by an unknown author, was added to
a 15th century edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales: "The
hoost... set his hond in kenebowe." The spelling didn't settle
down until the 20th century. In the preceding centuries, when
the need for standardised spelling wasn't keen