[f. LIME sb.1]
1. a. A limestone quarry. b. A pit in which lime is burnt.
c. 1440. Gesta Rom., lxx. 324 (Harl. MS.). Men that havith great plente of fire, for stonys to be brent in your lymepyttis.
1489–90. in Swayne, Churchw. Acc. Sarum (1896), 371. Cariage of Rubrish fro the lymepittes to the ch., 6d.
2. A pit in which tanners dress skins with lime to remove the hair, etc.
1591. Percivall, Sp. Dict., Pelambrera, a tanners lime pit, depilatorium.
1768. Blackstone, Comm., III. xiii. 218. It is a nusance … to corrupt or poison a water-course by erecting a dyehouse or a lime-pit for the use of trade, in the upper part of the stream.
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, 764. They [skins] are left in the lime-pits for about twelve days, when they are stripped of their hair [etc.].
