Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of various mineral and industrial forms of calcium oxide differing chiefly in water content and percentage of constituents such as magnesia, silica, alumina, and iron.
  • noun Birdlime.
  • transitive verb To treat with lime.
  • transitive verb To smear with birdlime.
  • transitive verb To catch or snare with or as if with birdlime.
  • noun Any of several evergreen trees or shrubs of the genus Citrus having edible green or greenish-yellow fruit, especially the Mexican lime and the Persian lime.
  • noun The fruit of any of these plants, having a pulpy interior and usually acid juice.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A tree, a variety of Citrus Medica.
  • noun The fruit of the lime-tree.
  • noun A tree of the genus Tilia, natural order Tiliaceæ; the linden.
  • Of or pertaining to the tree so called.
  • noun A cord for leading a dog; a leash. Hence limer, limmer, limehound.
  • To file; polish.
  • noun Any viscous substance; especially, a viscous substance laid on twigs for catching birds; bird-lime.
  • noun An alkaline earth of great economic importance.
  • To smear with a viscous substance for the purpose of catching birds.
  • Hence To entangle; insnare; encumber.
  • To apply lime to; in a special use, to manure with lime, as soil; throw lime into, as a pond or stream, to kill the fish in it.
  • To sprinkle with slaked lime, as a floor; treat with lime; in leather manufacturing, to steep (hides) in a solution of lime in order to remove the hair.
  • To cement.
  • noun Limit; end.
  • noun Citrus Australasica, a small tree of eastern Australia, bearing slender thorns, and ellipsoid or almost cylindrical fruits, 2–4 inches long, tasting like lemons.
  • noun The finger-lime;
  • noun An evergreen tree, Citrus australis, which reaches a height of from 30 to 50 feet and bears globular, acid fruits about the size of walnuts. Its beautiful light-yellow wood is hard, close-grained, and takes a high polish. Called also native orange.
  • noun In leather manufacturing, a vat containing a solution of lime for unhairing skins.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Bot.) The linden tree. See linden.
  • noun (Bot.) The fruit of the Citrus aurantifolia, allied to the lemon, but greener in color; also, the tree which bears it.
  • noun The color of the lime{1}, a yellowish-green.
  • noun Birdlime.
  • noun (Chem.) Oxide of calcium, CaO; the white or gray, caustic substance, usually called quicklime, obtained by calcining limestone or shells, the heat driving off carbon dioxide and leaving lime. It develops great heat when treated with water, forming slaked lime, and is an essential ingredient of cement, plastering, mortar, etc.
  • noun Calcium hydroxide or slaked lime; also, in a less technical sense, calcium oxide or quicklime.
  • noun one who burns limestone, shells, etc., to make lime.
  • noun a limestone quarry.
  • noun a twig smeared with birdlime; hence, that which catches; a snare.
  • noun A thong by which a dog is led; a leash.
  • adjective having a yellowish-green color like that of the lime (the fruit).
  • transitive verb To smear with a viscous substance, as birdlime.
  • transitive verb To entangle; to insnare.
  • transitive verb To treat with lime, or oxide or hydrate of calcium; to manure with lime
  • transitive verb To cement.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun chemistry A general term for inorganic materials containing calcium, usually calcium oxide or calcium hydroxide; quicklime.
  • noun poetic Any gluey or adhesive substance; something which traps or captures someone; sometimes a synonym for birdlime.
  • verb transitive To treat with calcium hydroxide or calcium oxide (lime).
  • verb transitive To smear with birdlime.
  • verb transitive To apply limewash
  • noun A deciduous tree of the genus Tilia, especially Tilia × europaea; the linden tree, or its wood.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English lim, from Old English līm, birdlime; see lei- in Indo-European roots.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, from Spanish lima, from Arabic līma, from Persian līmū, lemon, any of various citrus fruits; akin to Hindi nimbū and Gujarati lību, lime, of Austro-Asiatic origin; akin to Mundari (Munda language of Jharkhand, India) lembu.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Alteration of Middle English lind, line, from Old English lind.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Back-formation from limer.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From lime (the fruit) as comparable to lemon (a more explicit rating in anime).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old English līm, from Proto-Germanic *līmaz. Cognate with Danish lim (from Old Norse lím), Dutch lijm, German Leim; Latin limus ("mud").

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word lime.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Lime pickles are soaked (of course) in lime rather than salt brine.

    January 19, 2008

  • Does that mean soaking them in citrus juice, or lime water, the solution uncommonly known as Ca(OH)2? Or calcium oxide? Help! Is there a pickler in the house? Where's Peter Piper when you need him?

    January 19, 2008

  • There seem to be two kinds of lime pickles. What are usually called lime pickles are simply flavored with the citrus fruit, but another type is apparently made by soaking in a solution of the mineral rather than in brine. Odd, huh? Wonder what they taste like?

    January 20, 2008

  • Thanks reesetee! That is odd. I assume they'd taste limey, but I haven't the faintest what that would mean.

    January 20, 2008

  • I'm no pickler, but Ceviche is pickled in lime juice, sort of. As Asativum says, there's also this.

    January 20, 2008

  • I'm just hoping they don't taste like British sailors.

    January 20, 2008

  • Oh god, you mentioned ceviche. Oh, how I love ceviche...

    January 20, 2008

  • Ceviche,si. British sailors, I'll take a pass on. (And what a difference a preposition could make, no?)

    January 20, 2008

  • I love lime pickle almost as much as I love ceviche. They're completely different though; perhaps I'm thinking of a different lime pickle.

    Ceviche... I ate it seven times in five days in Lima.

    January 20, 2008

  • The mineral is also known as "quicklime," I believe.

    August 25, 2008

  • Emil asleep, Hannah peels a lime.

    October 18, 2008

  • "Brazil's vast inland cerrado region was regarded as unfit for farming before the 1960s because the soil was too acidic and poor in nutrients, according to Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug, an American plant scientist referred to as the father of the Green Revolution. However, from the 1960s, vast quantities of lime (pulverised chalk or limestone) were poured on the soil to reduce acidity. The effort went on and in the late 1990s between 14 million and 16 million tonnes of lime were being spread on Brazilian fields each year. The quantity rose to 25 million tonnes in 2003 and 2004, equalling around five tonnes of lime per hectare. As a result, Brazil has become the world's second biggest soybean exporter and, thanks to the boom in animal feed production, Brazil is now the biggest exporter of beef and poultry in the world."

    -- https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Agricultural_lime&oldid=854535911

    October 29, 2018