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.

• (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.
   • 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. 1605-1610, William Shakespeare, Coriolanus, Act I, Scene 6

     like a fawning greyhound in the leash

2. A brace and a half; a tierce.
3. A set of three; three creatures of any kind, especially greyhounds, foxes, bucks, and hares; hence, the number three in general.
   • 1597, Henry IV part 1, by Shakespeare

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

   • 1663, Hudibras, by Samuel Butler, part 1, 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.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Ben Jonson

     [I] kept my chamber a leash of days.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Tennyson

     Then were I wealthier than a leash of kings.

4. A string with a loop at the end for lifting warp threads, in a loom.
5. (surfing) A leg rope.

   1980: Probably the idea was around before that, but the first photo of the leash in action was published that year — As Years Roll By (1970's Retrospective), Drew Kampion, Surfing magazine, February 1980, page 43. Quoted at surfresearch.com.au glossary.

• (strap or cord used to restrain a dog): lead

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.
• “leash”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.

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