limn

present singular third person limns · participle present limning · participle past limned · past limned · alternative obsolete limne

1. alsofigurativelytransitiveTo draw or paint; to delineate.

   Thou limnest well, / Were I to paint, I should shew you happy.

   1846, Charles Devonshire, The Sorceress of Saragossa; a Play, in Five Acts, Falmouth, Cornwall: Printed by Fred H. Earle, […], →OCLC, act II, scene i, page 23

   5 more examples

   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, Letters, Poems; with Characters of Sundry Personages: And Other Incomparable Pieces of Language and Art. […], 4th edition, London: Printed for B[enjamin] Tooke, […], and T[homas] Sawbridge […], published 1685, →OCLC, page 397

   Then the Painter, according to the pattern of ſome living thing, portraieth [draweth out] the picture groſly; afterward he reſembleth it to the life, and with his pencil limneth it with different painting colors.

   1652, J[ohn] A[mos] Comenius, “Of Opticks [Eye-craft,] and Painting”, in Tho[mas] Horn[e], transl., edited by Joh[n] Robotham, W[illiam] D[ugard], and G. P., Janua Linguarum Reserata: Sive, Omnium Scientiarum & Linguarum Seminarium: […] = The Gate of Languages Unlocked: Or, a Seed-plot of All Arts and Tongues; Containing a Ready Way to Learn the Latine and English Tongue. […], London: Printed by Edw[ard] Griffin, and Wil[liam] Hunt, for Thomas Slater, […], →OCLC, paragraph 770

   Read books which are in french and Latin, for so you may retain and increase your knowledge in Latin: some times draw and limn and practise perspective.

   1661 November 1, Thomas Browne, “[Domestic Correspondence.] Dr. Browne to His Son Thomas.—Norwich, Nov. 1, [1661.]”, in Simon Wilkin, editor, The Works of Sir Thomas Browne (Bohn’s Antiquarian Library), volume III, London: Henry G[eorge] Bohn, published 1852, →OCLC, page 395

   This cupboard, Holy of Holies, held the cloud / Of his soul writ and limned; […]

   1881, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, “Five English Poets. II. William Blake. (To Frederick Shields, on His Sketch of Blake’s Work-room and Death-room, 3, Fountain Court, Strand.)”, in Ballads and Sonnets, London: Ellis and White, […], →OCLC, stanza 4, page 314, lines 9–10

   [S]he laughs—in golden tones; she sleeps—like a fragrant lily; she dresses—limning her eyebrows like those of the silkworm moth.

   1905, Herbert A[llen] Giles, “Childbirth, Childhood, and the Position of Woman”, in Adversaria Sinica, number 1, Shanghai: Messrs. Kelly & Walsh, Ltd., →OCLC, page 377

   Synonyms: depict

2. obsoletetransitiveTo 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 VI. and Queen Mary the First. […] In Three Volumes. […], volume I, London: Printed for John Wyat, […], →OCLC, book I, page 182

   Synonyms: enlimn