limmer
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
See also: Limmer
English
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈlɪmə/
Audio (Southern England): (file) - Rhymes: -ɪmə(ɹ)
Etymology 1
Uncertain; perhaps from limb, or French limier; see leamer.
Noun
limmer (plural limmers)
- (Scotland) A rogue; a low, base fellow.
- 1814 July 7, [Walter Scott], Waverley; or, ’Tis Sixty Years Since. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC:
- Thieves, limmers, and broken men of the Highlands.
- A promiscuous woman.
- 1994, Jeanette Winterson, Art and Lies:
- Doll Sneerpiece was not a scholar but fond of gentlemen, although to dub her a limmer, would have been to do her a wrong.
- A limehound; a leamer.
- A mongrel, such as a cross between the mastiff and hound.
- (nautical) A manrope at the side of a ladder.
Etymology 2
Adjective
limmer (comparative more limmer, superlative most limmer)
- Limber; flexible (either physically or morally).
- 1564, Bullein, Dialogue:
- Then the limmer Scottes ared me, burnt my guddes, and made deadlie feede on me and my barnes.
- 1578, Rembert Dodoens, A Nievve Herball, Or Historie of Plantes, page 669:
- The roote is long and very limmer, spreading his bráches both large and long under the earth and doth oftentimes let, hinder, & staye both the plough and Dren in toyling the ground, for they be so tough and limmer, that the share & colter of the plough cannot easily divide and cut them asunder.
- 1844, Robert Huddleston, A Collection of Poems and Songs, on rural subjects, page 81:
- Auld plenishen out by was strew'd, Guid L--d but it was limmer; Some creepy stools, an' shelfs weel scower'd Tae hide the worm pict tim'er Tae sell that day.
- 2002, Linda Lea Castle, Embrace the Sun: The Vaudrys, page 13:
- If you ride with the hell-spawned reivers and live as a limmer thief then you must expect to be singed by hell's fire.
Categories:
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- Rhymes:English/ɪmə(ɹ)
- Rhymes:English/ɪmə(ɹ)/2 syllables
- English terms with unknown etymologies
- English terms derived from French
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- Scottish English
- English terms with quotations
- en:Nautical
- English adjectives
- en:Dogs
- en:Women