Obs. exc. dial. Forms: 1 líc-tún, 5 lytton(e, letton, 6 lyttyn, 7 litton, 6– litten. [OE. líc-tún, f. líc corpse, LICH + tún enclosure, TOWN.] A churchyard. (Cf. CHURCH-LITTEN.)
c. 900. trans. Bæda’s Hist., III. xvii. (Schipper), 268. His lichama … wæs … on þæra broþra lictune bebyriʓed.
c. 1420. Chron. Vilod., 4087. Bot when he come in to þat chirche-lyttone þo, Twey wemen he founde þere.
1474–5. in Swayne, Churchw. Acc. Sarum (1896), 18. It. of the gift of the Bochers for grounds to her Stallys with oute the letton ijs. Ibid., 20. It’ in cleansyng of the Lytton xjd.
1506. Will of Leer (Somerset Ho.). To be buried in the cloister or in the lyttyn of the Trynite.
1595. in Swayne, Churchw. Acc. Sarum (1896), 145. The wale against the litten. Ibid. (1614–5), 165. Masonn mendinge the Church litton wale, 5s.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Litten, as Church-litten; a word us’d in Wiltshire for a Church-yard.
1798. J. Jefferson, Hampsh. Gloss. (MS.), s.v., The buryg. ground at Holy Ghost Chapel at B’stoke is called the Litten. It is used also at Newbury in Berks.
1818. in Todd, and in mod. Dicts.
