birdlime

Etymology

It is formed from English bird + lime.^[2][3][4] Its Middle English forms include birdlim, bridlim and brydelyme.^[5][6] Bird is from Old English bridd (“young bird, nestling”), also bird, of uncertain origin and without cognates in other Germanic languages.^[7] Lime in this sense is from Old English līm (“sticky substance, birdlime; mortar”),^[5][7] from Proto-Germanic *leimaz, which also gave Dutch lijm and German Leim (“birdlime”), and comes from Proto-Indo-European *(s)lei- (“slime, slimy, sticky”).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A sticky substance spread on twigs and branches to trap birds: about 1400, in a manuscript of H. Daniel's Liber Uricrisiarum, which the OED dates to 1379.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged puts the first known use in the 15th century,^[5] and Dictionary.com between 1400 and 1450.^[6]

Semantic evolution

A figurative use for anything that holds a person in its power followed about 1460, and is now rare.^[2] Because birdlime holds whatever touches it, thieves' "sticky fingers" made it a word for stealing: Green's Dictionary of Slang has it in Middleton in 1607, and bird-limed as an adjective for "thieving" from 1620.^[8] The sense "thief" is recorded from Vanbrugh in 1705 to 1841.^[2][8] Johnson (1755) described it as made from the bark of holly, boiled for ten or twelve hours.^[4] A separate development is rhyming slang, in which birdlime stands for time, recorded from 1857;^[2][8] navvies in 1880 were said to ask "What's the bird lime?".^[8] It came to mean a term of imprisonment,^[2][3] and Green's derives the prison slang bird, as in do bird, from it.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – a sticky substance spread on twigs to trap birds.^[2]
• c. 1460 – figurative, anything that ensnares a person.^[2]
• late 16th century – verb, to smear or catch with birdlime.^[3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the verb to 1618.^[5]
• 1607 – slang, stealing.^[8]
• 1705 – slang, a thief.^[2][8]
• 1857 – rhyming slang, time, and then a prison sentence.^[2][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A very sticky substance, usually made from the bark of holly or from mistletoe, smeared on twigs to catch small birds.^[5][9][2]
2. (rare) Something that traps or ensnares a person.^[2][5]
3. (British slang) Time, especially a prison sentence.^[2][3]
4. The plant cleavers.^[5]
5. (obsolete slang, 1705–1841) A thief.^[2][8]

Verb

1. To smear with birdlime, or to catch with it; to entrap: They birdlimed the branches along the hedge.^[9][5][3]

Related words

• bird
• lime
• slime

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
9. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins