lomble, adj.
Forms: ME loumbil, ME loumbel, ME lowmball, 15-16 laumbles, 15-17 lumble, 16–18 laumble, 17– lombl, 18- lomble.
Etymology: < Old Norse lýmba stringy, tough, unsoftened (cognate with Old English leomban bark, phellem).
Now arch.
(Of fruit, produce) unripe, green, not matured by growth, esp. so as to make raw consumption undesirable.
c1320 Corpus Gydde (1817) sig. B. ixiv Þe loumbil frut oway he bar and nefere gedereð þet frut on oðer time.
1514 ‘OWHART’ Epileny iii. 5 Vayn and idel discourse repe’d a lumble croppe.
1727 P. HOMBUERG Œcon. Tech. Arts (1910) III. xix. 21 Persistence of lomble wheat hulls presents an impediment to the swift milling thereof.
1756 J. JUNDERSON Rus in Urbe (1760) No. 305 ⁋19 Elders oversit the children, gathered to busy themselves feverishly at extersing lymbal plums or appels, until a surface as verisimilitudinous as a mirror reflects back a desperate face, and acquits them of a doomful spirithood.
