leash

nounverbcommon in dialogue

United Kingdom//liːʃ//

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

noun

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
obsoleteA brace and a half; a tierce.
3
obsoleteA set of three animals (especially greyhounds, foxes, deer/bucks, and hares).
Coordinate term: brace
4
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 leash of languages at once.
An I could climb and lay my hand upon it, / Then were I wealthier than a leash of kings.
5
A string with a loop at the end for lifting warp threads, in a loom.
6
A leg rope.
Probably the idea was around before that, but the first photo of the leash in action was published that year
7
A kind of metrical construct in Skeltonics.

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.

verb

1
To fasten or secure with a leash.
2
figurativeto curb, restrain
Man is brow-beaten, leashed, muzzled, masked, and lashed by boards and councils, by leagues and societies, by church and state.

Forms

plural: leashes
past tense: leashed
past participle: leashed
present participle: leashing
third person singular: leashes

learning · An act in which something is learned.lease · An interest in land granting exclusive use or occupation of…Lease · A surname.

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

least · Chiefly preceded by the: superlative form of little: most…leather · A tough material produced from the skin of animals, by…Leather · A surname.

The neighbouring pages — Alphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.