[f. LIME sb.1]
1. A twig smeared with birdlime for catching birds.
a. 1400[?]. Lydg., Chorle & Byrde (Roxb.), 13. Thy lyme twigges and panters I deffye.
1616. Surfl. & Markh., Country Farme, 705. Such as bring vs Hawkes, doe take them for the most part with lime-twigges.
1678. Bunyan, Pilgr., Apol. A iv. The Fowler His Gun, his Nets, his Lime-twigs.
a. 1711. Ken, Edmund, Poet. Wks. 1721, II. 113. As Birds unwary on the Lime-twigs tread.
c. 1820. S. Rogers, Italy (1839), 136. To catch a thrush on every lime-twig there.
b. fig.
1581. J. Bell, Haddon’s Answ. Osor., 457 b. A lymetwygg layed by Hypocrytes to gett money withall.
1593. Shaks., 2 Hen. VI., II. iii. 16. Combe downe his haire; looke, looke, it stands vpright, Like Lime-twigs set to catch my winged soule.
1607. Dekker, Sir T. Wyatt, Wks. 1873, III. 112. Catch Fooles with Lime-twigs dipt with pardons.
1634. Milton, Comus, 645. I knew the foul enchanter though disguised, Entered the very lime-twigs of his spells.
1771. Smollett, Humph. Cl., 11 June. There are so many lime-twigs laid in his way, that I’ll bet a cool hundred he swings before Christmas.
1821. Byron, Juan, V. xxii. Ambition, Avarice, Vengeance, Glory, glue The glittering lime-twigs of our latter days.
Prov. 1670. Ray, Prov., 175. His fingers are lime-twigs. Spoken of a thievish person.
† 2. One whose fingers are ‘limed’; a thief. Obs.
c. 1600. Nobody & Somebody, D 3 b. Talke not of the Gayle, ’tis full of limetwigs, lifts, and pickpockets.
† 3. attrib. or as adj. Ensnaring; pilfering. Obs.
1602. 2nd Pt. Return fr. Parnass., I. iv. 428. Let vs run through all the lewd formes of lime-twig purloyning villanyes.
c. 1730. Royal Remarks, 44. The Lime-twigg Titles of their own [the Booksellers’] composing, to catch the curious Birds of Life … Momus wanting that Lime-twigg Faculty.
Hence † Lime-twig v. trans., to catch as with a lime-twig; to entangle, ensnare.
1646. J. Hall, Horæ Vac., 87. You may be Lyme-twig’d with their errours and loose the Truth for a friend.
1671. L. Addison, W. Barbary, To Rdr. That the Ottoman Empire … reckon it among their Happinesses not to have their Consultations lime-twigg’d with Quirks and Sophisms of Philosophical Persons.
1681. Glanvill, Sadducismus, I. (1726), 85. Their Mind is so illaqueated or lime-twigged, as it were, with the Ideas and Properties of Corporeal Things.
1815. Lamb, Lett., to Wordsworth (1852), 246/1. Lord bless me! these ‘merchants and their spicy drugs’ … they lime-twig up my poor soul and body.
1829. Landor, Imag. Conv., Barrow & Newton, Wks. 1853, I. 484/1. He allowed his mind to be lime-twigged and ruffled and discomposed by words.
