Dictionary

limekiln

Noun

limekiln (plural limekilns)

A furnace used to produce lime from limestone.
- c. 1600, William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act III, Scene 3,
  Thou mightst as well say I love to walk by the Counter-gate, which is as hateful to me as the reek of a lime-kiln.
- 1850, Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, Chapter 13,
  From head to foot I was powdered almost as white with chalk and dust, as if I had come out of a lime-kiln.
- 1902, Edith Nesbit, In the Dark: Tales of Terror, Chapter 3,
  He wasn’t comfortable, he said. And he’d got a thirst like a lime kiln. And he’d noticed that there was no water-bottle in the room.
- 1916, Ambrose Pratt, Her Assigned Husband, London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, Chapter 23,
  “I can’t be dead,” he reflected. “I have a villainous headache, and my mouth is like a lime-kiln […] ”
- 1931, John Buchan, The Blanket in the Dark, Chapter 5,
  His body was far from comfortable, for he was not accustomed to squatting or lolling, and the heat of the fire and the heavy flavour of food and ale had made the place like a limekiln.
(obsolete, figurative) A burning sensation.
- c. 1601, William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, Act V, Scene 1,
  Now, the rotten diseases of the south, the guts-griping, ruptures, catarrhs, loads o’ gravel i’ the back, lethargies, cold palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, wheezing lungs, bladders full of imposthume, sciaticas, limekilns i’ the palm, incurable bone-ache, and the rivelled fee-simple of the tetter, take and take again such preposterous discoveries!

Translations

Italian: calcara
Portuguese: caieira

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