Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 4.pdf/207

 Lime-basket. To be dry as a lime-basket, verb. phr. (common).—To be very dry; To spit sixpences (q.v.). Also to have hot coppers (q.v.).

1838. Dickens, Oliver Twist. He wished he might be basted if he warn't as dry as a limebasket.

1892. Hume Nisbet, Bushranger's Sweetheart, 136. 'That infernal swanky has left me as dry as a lime kiln,' cried out my companion.

Lime-juice, subs. (Australian). See quots.

1886. E. Wakefield, in Nineteenth Century, August, 173. In these Colonies [Australia], where pretty nearly every one has made several sea voyages, that subject is strictly tabooed in all rational society. To dilate upon it is to betray a 'new chum'—what they call in Australia a lime juice.

1887. All the Year Round, 30 July, 66. A young man newly arrived in the Colonies from the old country is styled a new Chum or a lime-juice.

Limejuicer, subs. (American nautical).—A British ship or sailor. [In allusion to the lime-juice served out as an anti-scorbutic].

1881. International Rev., xi. 525. You limejuicers have found that Richmond is taken.

1884. Pall Mall Gazette, 26 Aug. They would not go on a limejuicer, they said, for anything.

Limetwig, subs. (old).—1. A snare; a trick. Hence (2) any means of swindling. Also as adj.

1592. Nashe, Pierce Penilesse [Grosart (1885), ii. 24]. Thus walks he vp and downe and  busies himselfe in setting siluer lime twigs to entangle young gentlemen.

1592. Greene, Black Books Messenger [Grosart (1881-6), xi. 7]. The cards to be called the lime twigs.

1606. Return from Parnassus [Dodsley, Old Plays (1874), ix. 125]. Let us run through all the lewd forms of lime-twig, purloining villanies.

1670. Ray, Proverbs [Bohn (1893), 160]. His fingers are limetwigs, spoken of a thievish person.

Limlifter, subs. (old).—A land-*lubber (q.v.).

1598. Florio, A Worlde of Wordes, Levantino, a lifter, a shifter, a limlifter, a pilferer, etc. Ibid. Cefalú, a scornefull nickname, as we say a limlifter.

Limping-Jesus, subs. (common).— A lameter; a dot-and-carry-one (q.v.).

Lindabrides, subs. (old).—A harlot. For synonyms see Barrack-hack and Tart.

1663. Killigrew, Parson's Wedding, iv. 1. Such a woman is my wife, and no lindabrides.

Line, subs. (colloquial).—A calling; a profession; a lay (q.v.).

1655. Fuller, Church Hist., II. ix. 23. If I chance to make an excursion into the matters of the Commonwealth, it is not out of curiosity, or busy-bodinesse, to be medling in other men's lines.

1803. Kenney, Raising the Wind, i. 1. Waiter The fellow lives by spunging—gets into people's houses by his songs and his bon-mots. At some of the squires' tables he's as constant a guest as the parson, or the apothecary. Sam. Come, that's an odd line to go into, however.

1836. Dickens, Sketches by Boz, 41. The man in the shop, perhaps is in the baked 'jemmy' line, or the fire-*wood and hearth-stone line, or any other line which requires a floating capital of eighteen-pence or thereabouts.

1888. Rolf Boldrewood, Robbery Under Arms, xxiv. Our first try on in the coach line was with the Goulburn mail.

1891. N. Gould, Double Event, 177. It's out of my line.

1892. Milliken, 'Arry Ballads, 52. Halpine Club bizness is oko, and not in my line.