limekiln

Noun

limekiln (plural limekilns)

1. A furnace used to produce lime (quicklime and slaked lime) from limestone.
   • 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.c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
   • From head to foot I was powdered almost as white with chalk and dust, as if I had come out of a lime-kiln.1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, chapter 13, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC
2. (figuratively, obsolete) A burning sensation.
   • 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...c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...