limn

(lĭm)

tr.v. limned, limn·ing (lĭm′nĭng), limns

1. To describe or depict by painting or drawing.

2. To suffuse or highlight with light or color; illuminate: "There was just enough juice left in Merrill's flashlight to limn the outlines: A round lobe here. Another lobe over there" (Hampton Sides).

3. To describe or portray in words.

[Middle English limnen, to illuminate (a manuscript), probably alteration (influenced by limnour, illustrator) of luminen, from Old French luminer, from Latin lūmināre, to illuminate, adorn, from lūmen, lūmin-, light; see leuk- in Indo-European roots.]

limn′er (lĭm′nər) n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

limner

Archaic. a book illustrator or one who illuminates manuscripts.

See also: Books

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

limner - a painter or drawer of portraits

portrait painter, portraitist, portrayer

painter - an artist who paints

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

Primrose tells of it: "My wife and daughters happening to return a visit to neighbour Flamborough's, found that family had lately got their pictures drawn by a limner, who travelled the country, and took likenesses for fifteen shillings a-head.

"Having therefore engaged the limner (for what could I do?) our next deliberation was, to show the superiority of our taste in the attitudes.

View in context

Rumour in Cloisterham (Miss Ferdinand will honour me with her attention) was no exception to the great limner's portrait of Rumour elsewhere.

View in context

"That is Wat the limner," quoth the landlady, sitting down beside Alleyne, and pointing with the ladle to the sleeping man.

View in context

Macaulay is a masterly limner of the external side of life, but he is scarcely conscious of the interior world in which the finer spirits live and work out their destinies.

View in context

1976) 1916 David Donaldson, Scots painter and limner to the Queen (d.

Birthdays

At the East End is the Artists' Corner where local literary figures Eric Linklater, George Mackay Brown and Edwin Muir, among others, are memorialized, along with Stanley Cursiter, Director of the National Gallery of Scotland (1939-1948) and The King's, then Queen's Painter and Limner in Scotland from 1948 to 1976.

Tom Miller uncovers Orkney's cross-fertilisation of art, architecture and landscape

It traces his progress from Exeter-born goldsmith's son to official 'limner', or miniature painter, for both Elizabeth I and her successor, James I.

Off the shelf

larger than here shewn, though the limner declared that it did not seem

Seeing the Invisible under the Microscope: Natural Philosophy and John Donne's Flea

Exercising a phenomenal memory, in language that is sometimes more spontaneous than polished, often verbose, and nearly always colorful and engaging, Marx presents himself as a tirelessly wide-eyed observer, a shrewd and inquisitive portraitist, an avid limner of cities and landscapes, and an active participant in the cultural life of his times, eager to enjoy the artistic and intellectual companionship of contemporaries.

Recollections from My Life: An Autobiography by Adolph Bernhard Marx

Before being appointed Queen Victoria's Limner (artist) in Scotland, he worked from 1839 to 1842 as a pattern-drawer at Brown and Sharp's textile company, in George Street, Paisley.

Helen was one of my childhood heroes

Jon refers to himself as a limner - an individual who illuminated manuscripts.

Capturing the great outdoors