leash

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), from Latin laxa (“thong, a loose cord”), feminine form of laxus (“loose”); compare lax. Doublet of laisse.

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /liːʃ/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -iːʃ
• Homophone: Laois

leash (plural leashes)

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

   Synonym: lead

   • 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned:

     A stout woman upholstered in velvet, her flabby cheeks too much massaged, swirled by with her poodle straining at its leash

   • c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene vi]:

     like a fawning greyhound in the leash

2. (obsolete) A brace and a half; a tierce.
3. (obsolete) A set of three animals (especially greyhounds, foxes, bucks, and hares;)
4. (obsolete) A group of three.
   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):

     Sirrah, I am sworn brother to a leash of drawers; and can call them all by their Christian names, as, Tom, Dick, and Francis.

   • 1609 December (first performance), Beniamin Ionson [i.e., Ben Jonson], “Epicoene, or The Silent Woman. A Comœdie. […]”, in The Workes of Beniamin Ionson (First Folio), London: […] Will[iam] Stansby, published 1616, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):

     [I] kept my chamber a leash of days.

   • 1662, [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678, →OCLC; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge: University Press, 1905, →OCLC, canto 1:

     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.

   • 1874, Alfred Tennyson, “Gareth and Lynette”, in Idylls of the King (The Works of Alfred Tennyson; V), cabinet edition, London: Henry S. King & Co., […], →OCLC, page 39:

     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. (surfing) A leg rope.
   • 1980 February, Drew Kampion, “As Years Roll By (1970's Retrospective”, in Surfing, page 43:

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

7. (prosody) A kind of metrical construct in Skeltonics.

leash (third-person singular simple present leashes, present participle leashing, simple past and past participle leashed)

1. To fasten or secure with a leash.
2. (figuratively) to curb, restrain
   • 1919, Boris Sidis, The Source and Aim of Human Progress:

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

• unleash (verb)

• “leash”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “leash”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.

• Hales, Heals, Sahel, Saleh, Selah, hales, halse, heals, selah, shale, sheal