limekiln

plural limekilns · alternative lime-kiln · alternative lime kiln

1. A furnace used to produce lime (quicklime and slaked lime) from limestone.

   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

   4 more examples

   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] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]

   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.

   1902, Edith Nesbit, chapter 3, in In the Dark: Tales of Terror

   “I can’t be dead,” he reflected. “I have a villainous headache, and my mouth is like a lime-kiln […]”

   1916, Ambrose Pratt, chapter 23, in Her Assigned Husband, London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent

   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.

   1931, John Buchan, chapter 5, in The Blanket in the Dark

2. figurativelyobsoleteA burning sensation.

   1 more example

   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!

   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 Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]