Now literary or arch. Forms: 4–5 lymnour, 4–6 lymenor(e, 5 lymnore, lympner, 6 lymmer, 6–7 lymner, limmer, 7 limbner, limpner, 6– limner. [Altered form of LUMINER: see LIMN v. and -ER1.]
1. An illuminator of manuscripts. Hist.
1389. in Eng. Gilds (1870), 9. Johannes Dancastre, lymenor.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVII. cxli. (1495), 698. Grauours, lymnours and payntours eteth Rewe to sharpe theyr syghte.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 317/1. Lymnore (K. c. 1490 luminour), elucidator, miniographus.
1483. Act 1 Rich. III., c. 9 § 1. That this Acte … in no wise extende … to any writer lympner bynder or imprynter.
c. 1515. Cocke Lorell’s B., 10. Barbers, boke bynders, and lymners.
1555. Eden, Decades, 188. The lyttle byrdes whiche the lymmers of bookes are accustomed to paynte on the margentes of churche bookes.
1607. R. C[arew], trans. Estienne’s World of Wonders, 334. A limmer … had drawne S. Peter and S. Paul so liuely.
1859. C. Barker, Associat. Princ., i. 18. The Rector Chori … had … the charge of the writing materials … and of the colours for the limners.
2. A painter, esp. a portrait painter. Sometimes spec., a water-color artist.
1594. Plat, Jewell-ho., II. 23. The fine and subtil earth of the hearbe or flower, out of the which some curious Limner may draw some excellent colour.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts (1658), 10. The Poets (with their apes, the painters, limmers, and carvers).
1638. Ussher, Immanuel (1645), 16. A curious limmer draweth his own sons pourtraicture to the life.
1659. J. Arrowsmith, Chain Princ., 137. The limbner drew it as he was an artist, not as one of this or that nation.
1661–2. Pepys, Diary, 2 Jan. Cooper, the great limner in little.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. 147/2. A Limner, a Painter in Water colours.
1752. Foote, Taste, I. i. Pray now, Mr. Carmine, how do you Limners contrive to overlook the Ugliness, and yet preserve the Likeness?
1830. D’Israeli, Chas. I., III. viii. 186. Many refined strokes show that the limner had studied his original by her side.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), III. 250. The drawing of a limner which has not the shadow of a likeness to the truth.
Hence Limnery, the work of a limner.
c. 1831. H. Coleridge, Ess. (1851), I. 199. The few remnants of church-limnery that have escaped the fanatics and the modernisers.
