Tuesday, May 3, 2011

limn

limn [lɪm] v. t.

1.) To draw or paint; especially, to represent in an artistic way with pencil or brush.
2.) Hence: To picture in words; to describe in graphic terms.
3.) To illumine, as books or parchments, with ornamental figures, letters, or borders (GNU Collaborative International Dictionary of English).

Etymology: Middle English limnen, to illuminate (a manuscript), probably alteration (influenced by limnour, illustrator), of luminen from Old French luminer, from Latin luminare, to illuminate, adorn, from lumen, lumin-, light.

"Let a painter carelessly limn out a million of faces, and you shall find them all different; yes, let him have his copy before him, yet, after all his art, there will remain a sensible distinction: for the pattern or example of everything is the perfectest in that kind, whereof we still come short, though we transcend or go beyond it; because herein it is wide, and agrees not in all points unto its copy" (Religio Medici, Thomas Browne, 1643).
_____________________________________________________

Well, even after the debacle of last week, I'll be watching El Dramatico tonight and hoping Real can pull off a miracle. If nothing else, Iniesta should play, so Barca might do more than just obsessively keep the ball.

27 comments:

The Awesome Alien said...

<3 this word

themajessty said...

Interesting!

I LOVE learning new vocab and you give a very thorough explanation, which is awesome.

DEZMOND said...

ah, I must limn me something pronto :)

Zombie said...

I wish I could Limn. lol.

Jose Cuer said...

I am thinking that maybe I'll start putting your blog into a sort of makeshift dictionary of mine so I can pull out some weird words when I need them the most ...

Solsby Kid said...

Amazing word

Kicking Rocks said...

reminds me of bob ross

D4 said...

Oh good, I can use limn. Make people stare at me and such.

Kevin Faulkner said...

Browne often makes this point of originality, copy and coincidence in his writings, but yours itself is an original citing of Browne from a little used quotation, R.M Part 2 Section 2 to be precise !

Kevin Faulkner said...

I think you will Browne a rich source of unusual words and neologisms. He's credited with introducing words such as 'electrical' 'hallucination' 'ambidextrous' 'antediluvian' 'cylindrical' 'pathology' and many, many others. Probably the most frequent author cited in the OED.

RedHeadRob said...

very good word, very neat.

Dave said...

Limm just sounds right.

PeaceLoveandSharpies said...

So...I limn with Sharpies everyday. :D

zepdragon said...

Limn. I like it.

Jennifer Fabulous said...

And yet another insanely cool word for me to toss around in front of impressive people. Thank you. ;)

G said...

nice word...

Biff Tanner said...

Thanks Sonny Jim!

-E- said...

@Jose Cuer yep that's the dream.

@Hydriotaphia i didn't he coined those words. thanks for the info!

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty sure if I used this in a sentence, my friends would be like "Say what?"

Or maybe I'm just underestimating my friends' vocabulary.

123 said...

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that i've heard the word limn used somehwere before

...except not really, i just wanted to say that :(

Courtney Erin said...

I did some research on limners at the Tudor court last year in preparation for writing a review of a book by Kathryn James on Lavinia Teerlinc....very cool!

xoxo ~ Courtney
http://sartorialsidelines.blogspot.com

Z said...

Very interesting blog! It is good to know since English is my second language

Eeshie said...

I can't wait for tomorrow. I'm going to write that sentence on my hand and say it to my teacher and watch their face distort uncomfortably.

Hehe...

Blk Jesus said...

epic vocabulary

Twenty.Something said...

Very neat! I will have to start using this word. Love it.

xo
http://artfashiontwentysomething.blogspot.com

RaShelle Workman said...

Limn. Limn. Limn. So much fun. =D

Team Panda said...

cool this was an easy one to understand, wonder why they decided to add the silent though

Post a Comment