LIMASOL

limasol, a seaport of cyprus, on akrotiri bay of the south coast. pop. (1901) 8298. excepting a fort attributed to the close of the 12th century the town is without antiquities of interest, but in the neighbourhood are the ancient sites of amathus and curium. limasol has a considerable trade in wine and carobs. the town was the scene of the marriage of richard i., king of england, with berengaria, in 1191. limb. (1) (in o. eng. _lim_, cognate with the o. nor. and icel. _limr_, swed. and dan. _lem_; probably the word is to be referred to a root _li_- seen in an obsolete english word "lith," a limb, and in the ger. _glied_), originally any portion or member of the body, but now restricted in meaning to the external members of the body of an animal apart from the head and trunk, the legs and arms, or, in a bird, the wings. it is sometimes used of the lower limbs only, and is synonymous with "leg." the word is also used of the main branches of a tree, of the projecting spurs of a range of mountains, of the arms of a cross, &c. as a translation of the lat. _membrum_, and with special reference to the church as the "body of christ," "limb" was frequently used by ecclesiastical writers of the 16th and 17th centuries of a person as being a component part of the church; cf. such expressions as "limb of satan," "limb of the law," &c. from the use of _membrum_ in medieval latin for an estate dependent on another, the name "limb" is given to an outlying portion of another, or to the subordinate members of the cinque ports, attached to one of the principal towns; pevensey was thus a "limb" of hastings. (2) an edge or border, frequently used in scientific language for the boundary of a surface. it is thus used of the edge of the disk of the sun or moon, of the expanded part of a petal or sepal in botany, &c. this word is a shortened form of "limbo" or "limbus," lat. for an edge, for the theological use of which see limbus.