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leash

noun
/liːʃ/UK

Etymology

From Middle English leesshe, leysche, lesshe, a variant of more original lease, from Middle English lees, leese, leece, lese, from Old French lesse (modern French laisse), either from Latin laxa, feminine form of laxus (“loose”) or, more probably, from a deverbal of Old French lesser, laissier, from Latin laxāre (“loose”); compare lax. Doublet of laisse.

  1. derived from laxō — “loose”
  2. derived from lesser
  3. derived from laxa
  4. derived from lesse
  5. derived from lees
  6. inherited from leesshe

Definitions

  1. A strap, cord or rope with which to restrain an animal, often a dog.

    • A stout woman upholstered in velvet, her flabby cheeks too much massaged, swirled by with her poodle straining at its leash
    • like a fawning greyhound in the leash

  2. A brace and a half

    A brace and a half; a tierce.

  3. A set of three animals (especially greyhounds, foxes, bucks, and hares

    A set of three animals (especially greyhounds, foxes, bucks, and hares;)

  4. ›+ 6 more definitions

    1. A group of three.

      • Sirrah, I am sworn brother to a leash of drawers; and can call them all by their Christian names, as, Tom, Dick, and Francis.
      • [I] kept my chamber a leash of days.
      • It had an odd promiscuous tone, / As if h' had talk'd three parts in one; / Which made some think, when he did gabble, / Th' had heard three labourers of Babel; / Or Cerberus himself pronounce / A leash of languages at once.

    2. A string with a loop at the end for lifting warp threads, in a loom.

    3. A leg rope.

      • Probably the idea was around before that, but the first photo of the leash in action was published that year

    4. A kind of metrical construct in Skeltonics.

    5. To fasten or secure with a leash.

    6. to curb, restrain

      • Man is brow-beaten, leashed, muzzled, masked, and lashed by boards and councils, by leagues and societies, by church and state.

The neighborhood

Derived

in leash, leashless, leashlike, off-leash, on a tight leash, on-leash, short leash, strain at the leash, traffic leash, urinary leash, unleashable

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for leash. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA