Forms: see LIME sb.1 and KILN; also 6 lyme kylme, 7 limbekill. A kiln in which lime is made by calcining limestone.
1296. Durham Halmote Rolls (Surtees), 6. Septem acras terræ apud limkilne.
1355–6. Durham Acc. Rolls (Surtees), 557. Et in 1 Lymkilne comburend. apud Pytingdon, 14s. 6d.
1509. Bury Wills (Camden), 112. Ye hygheway from ye lyme kylle.
1580. Frampton, Dial. Yron & Steele, in Joyful News (1596), 145. Put them into an Ouen, like to a lyme keele.
1598. Shaks., Merry W., III. iii. 86. As hatefull to me, as the reeke of a Lime-kill.
1608. Bonham, in Topsell, Serpents, 314. Wormes … which are wont to doe much hurt to Fornaces and Limbekills where they make Limbe.
1692. Lond. Gaz., No. 2328/2. They destroyed their famous Lime Kill.
1703. Maundrell, Journ. Jerus. (1732), 83. Resembling those places in England where there have been anciently Lime kilns.
1859. Alice Cary, Pict. Country Life, i. 16. Sitting like as if he was moonstruck, so to speak, on a pile of dry stones that had once been a lime-kiln.
1892. Hume Nisbet, Bushranger’s Sweetheart, xviii. 136. ‘That infernal “swanky” has left me as dry as a lime kiln,’ cried out my companion.
attrib. c. 1547. in Willis & Clark, Cambridge (1886), II. 726. A key of ye lyme kylne doore.
b. transf. and fig.
1606. Shaks., Tr. & Cr., V. i. 25 (Qo. 1609). Now the rotten diseases of the south … Sciaticaes, limekills ith’ palme,… take and take againe such preposterous discoueries!
1845. E. B. Barrett, in Lett. R. Browning (1899), I. 289. The great Law lime-kiln dries human souls all to one colour.
