Word.ws English Dictionary

limne

limne is the obsolete form of limn.

Meaning of limn

Verb

limn (third-person singular simple present limns, present participle limning, simple past and past participle limned)

  1. (also, figuratively, transitive) To draw or paint; to delineate.
    • Who then to frail Mortality ſhall truſt, / But limns in Water, or but writes in Duſt.a. 1627, Francis Bacon, “[Poems Found among the Papers of Sir Henry Wotton.] The World.”, in Henry Wotton, edited by Izaac Walton [i.e., Izaak Walton], Reliquiæ Wottonianæ: Or, A Collection of Lives...
    Synonyms:
    depict
  2. (obsolete, transitive) To illuminate, as a manuscript; to decorate with gold or some other bright colour.
    • Some of her [Elizabeth Barton's] Revelations were no better than ſilly Tales: Such was a certain Tale of Mary Magdalen, delivering her a Letter from Heaven, that was limned with golden Letters: which indeed was written by a Monk of St. Auguſtines, Canterbury: and another at Calais.1721, John Strype, chapter XXV, in Ecclesiastical Memorials; Relating Chiefly to Religion, and the Reformation of It, and the Emergencies of the Church of England, under King Henry VIII. King Edward...
    Synonyms:
    enlimn

Forms of limne

third-person singular presentlimnes
present participlelimning
past participlelimned
pastlimned

Questions about limne

What is limne the obsolete form of?
Limne is the obsolete form of limn.

Words near limne in the dictionary

  1. limmu
  2. limmus
  3. limn
  4. limn-
  5. limnantheoside
  6. limne
  7. limned
  8. limnemic
  9. limnephilid
  10. limnephilids
  11. limner

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: limne (page history and authors); limn (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “limne.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/limne. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.