lime

1. 1.

   spread birdlime on branches to catch birds

   Synonymsbirdlime

   Broaderspread
2. 2.

   cover with lime so as to induce growth

   “lime the lawn”

   Broadercover

Other forms of lime

plural

limes·

past tense

limed·

present participle

liming·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about lime

What does lime mean?

lime means "a caustic substance produced by heating limestone". That is the primary sense; the word has 8 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in lime?

lime has 1 syllable: lime. In IPA it is /ˈlaɪm/.

What is another word for lime?

Close synonyms include calcium hydroxide, slaked lime, hydrated lime, calcium hydrate, caustic lime. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is lime a common word?

lime is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.