/liːʃ/
OriginFrom 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.
- 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”
- obsoleteA brace and a half; a tierce.
- obsoleteA set of three animals (especially greyhounds, foxes, bucks, and hares;)
- obsoleteA 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 lea”
- A string with a loop at the end for lifting warp threads, in a loom.
- A leg rope.
“Probably the idea was around before that, but the first photo of the leash in action was published that year”
- A kind of metrical construct in Skeltonics.
- To fasten or secure with a leash.
- figurativelyto curb, restrain
“Man is brow-beaten, leashed, muzzled, masked, and lashed by boards and councils, by leagues and societies, by church and state.”
Formsleashes(plural) · leashes(present, singular, third-person) · leashing(participle, present) · leashed(participle, past) · leashed(past)