Limed

ppl. a. [f. LIME v.¹ + -ED¹.]

  1.  Smeared with birdlime (or other sticky substance); † fig. said of hands given to pilfering.

c. 13[?].  Seuyn Sages (W.), 1289. The wise man dede make a dich Ful of lim and of pich, The fader lep in bifore, Into the limed diche.

1399.  Langl., Rich. Redeles, II. 186. Lymed leues were leyde all aboute.

1563.  B. Googe, Eglogs, vi. (Arb.), 54. Somtime I wold betraye the Byrds, that lyght on lymed tree.

1583.  Stubbes, Anat. Abus., II. (1882), 38. Men … who haue limed fingers, liuing vpon pilfering.

1602.  Shaks., Ham., III. iii. 68. Oh limed soule, that strugling to be free, Art more ingag’d.

1720.  Gay, Dione, II. v. Poems II. 467. On the lim’d twig thus finches beat their wings.

1849.  G. P. R. James, Woodman, ii. There are limed twigs about them, my child.

  2.  Dressed or treated with lime.

1707–12.  Mortimer, Husb., II. Suppl. I. vii. 36. All sort of Peas love limed or marled Land.

1770–4.  A. Hunter, Georg. Ess. (1803), I. 30. Clay, well limed, will fall in winter.

1898.  Trans. Highl. & Agric. Soc. Scotl., 91. On limed land, too, Agrostis is eaten by stock.