Etymograph

English

limous

Limous comes from Latin limosus ‘miry, muddy, marshy, slimy’, and goes back to limus ‘slime, mud’.

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CElimus1‘slime, mud’
  2. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CElimosus1‘miry, muddy, marshy, slimy’
  3. Englishearliest quotation 1650limous1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English limous
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […]: “the settling of mud and limous matter brought down…”.

Earlier history uncertain. See Wiktionary.

Lineage

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CElimusWiktionary, English limous‘slime, mud’
  2. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CElimosusWiktionary, English limous‘miry, muddy, marshy, slimy’
  3. Englishearliest quotation 1650limousWiktionary, English limous. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […]: “the settling of mud and limous matter brought down…”

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *h₂leyH- ‘to smear’

delete, lime, deletion, indelible, loam, dele, 8 more

through Latin limus ‘slime, mud’

limit, limes, 11 more

Today it means

adj muddy; slimy; viscous

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “limous”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Latin limus / limous

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