Limepit

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A pit or tank in which flax, hemp or bark is steeped in lime or water to loosen its fibres or prepare it for processing
2. A sunken vat used to soak plant material such as flax in lime solution so that its fibres can be separated
3. An excavated pit where fibrous plants are retted in water or lime, a traditional step in preparing textile or tanning materials

Etymology: A limepit is simply a pit dug in the ground for holding lime, the caustic substance made by burning limestone or chalk. The word is a plain compound of "lime" and "pit", with no hidden history behind it: the first element names the material and the second names the hole. Its older sense of a pit where lime was slaked, or where hides were soaked in lime during tanning, makes the word more concrete than its two parts suggest.