| 释义 |
ˈlime-twig
[f. lime n.1]
1. A twig smeared with birdlime for catching birds.
a1400Lydg. Chorle & Byrde (Roxb.) 13 Thy lyme twigges and panters I deffye. 1616Surfl. & Markh. Country Farme 705 Such as bring vs Hawkes, doe take them for the most part with lime-twigges. 1678Bunyan Pilgr. Apol. A iv, The Fowler His Gun, his Nets, his Lime-twigs. a1711Ken Edmund Poet. Wks. 1721 II. 113 As Birds unwary on the Lime-twigs tread. c1820S. Rogers Italy (1839) 136 To catch a thrush on every lime-twig there.
b. fig.
1581J. Bell Haddon's Answ. Osor. 457 b, A lymetwygg layed by Hypocrytes to gett money withall. 1593Shakes. 2 Hen. VI, iii. iii. 16. 1607 Dekker Sir T. Wyatt Wks. 1873 III. 112 Catch Fooles with Lime-twigs dipt with pardons. 1634Milton Comus 646. 1771 Smollett Humph. Cl. 11 June, There are so many lime-twigs laid in his way, that I'll bet a cool hundred he swings before Christmas. 1821Byron Juan v. xxii, Ambition, Avarice, Vengeance, Glory, glue The glittering lime-twigs of our latter days.
Prov.1670Ray Prov. 175 His fingers are lime-twigs. Spoken of a thievish person.
†2. One whose fingers are ‘limed’; a thief. Obs.
c1600Nobody & Someb. D 3 b, Talke not of the Gayle, 'tis full of limetwigs, lifts, and pickpockets.
†3. attrib. or as adj. Ensnaring; pilfering. Obs.
16022nd Pt. Return fr. Parnass. i. iv. 428 Let vs run through all the lewd formes of lime-twig purloyning villanyes. c1730Royal Remarks 44 The Lime-twigg Titles of their own [the Booksellers'] composing, to catch the curious Birds of Life..Momus wanting that Lime-twigg Faculty.
Hence † ˈlime-twig v. trans., to catch as with a lime-twig; to entangle, ensnare.
1646J. Hall Horæ Vac. 87 You may be Lyme-twig'd with their errours and loose the Truth for a friend. 1671L. Addison W. Barbary To Rdr., That the Ottoman Empire..reckon it among their Happinesses not to have their Consultations lime-twigg'd with Quirks and Sophisms of Philosophical Persons. 1681Glanvill Sadducismus i. (1726) 85 Their Mind is so illaqueated or lime-twigged, as it were, with the Ideas and Properties of Corporeal Things. 1815Lamb Lett., to Wordsworth (1852) 246/1 Lord bless me! these ‘merchants and their spicy drugs’..they lime-twig up my poor soul and body. 1829Landor Imag. Conv., Barrow & Newton Wks. 1853 I. 484/1 He allowed his mind to be lime-twigged and ruffled and discomposed by words. |