详解沪东中华造船厂：中国两栖攻击舰或在这里下水

"sweetheart, paramour, loved one" (archaic), c. 1200, lemman, "loved one of the opposite sex; paramour, lover; wife;" also "a spiritually beloved one; redeemed soul, believer in Christ; female saint devoted to chastity; God, Christ, the Virgin Mary;" also a term of intimate address to a friend or lover, contracted from late Old English leofman, a compound of leof "dear" (see lief) + man "human being, person" (from PIE root *man- (1) "man").

Originally of either gender, though in deliberate archaic usage it tends to be limited to women. Often in religious use in early Middle English, of brides of Christ, the spiritually beloved of God, etc.; by c. 1300 it could mean "betrothed lover," and by late 14c. it had the pejorative sense "concubine, mistress, gallant." For loss of medial -f-, compare had.

"greenish-yellow citrus fruit," 1630s, probably via Spanish lima or Portuguese lim?o, said to be via Arabic lima "citrus fruit," from Persian limun, in reference to the Persian lime, which might be a hybrid of the "Key" lime and the lemon.

The word is perhaps from or related to Sanskrit nimbu "lime." The Key lime is indigenous to India and the Malay archipelago (Arabs introduced it to the Levant, North Africa, Spain, and Persia in the Middle Ages); compare Malay (Austronesian) limaw "lime," also, generically, "citrus fruit," which might be the ultimate source. Yule and Burnell think the English got the word from the Portuguese in India. Lime-green as a color is by 1883.