lass

From Middle English lasse, from Old Norse laskura (“an unmarried woman, maiden”). Cognate with Scots lassie.

• IPA^(key): /læs/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æs

lass (plural lasses)

1. (archaic in some dialects, informal) A young woman or girl.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:girl

   Coordinate term: lad

   Come and dance, ye lads and lasses!

2. (Geordie, Mackem) A sweetheart.

Still prevalent in Scottish English, Irish English, North East England, Lancashire and Yorkshire. Sometimes used poetically in other dialects of English.

• buffer lass
• hallelujah lass
• lasslorn
• wor lass

• lad
• lassie

• A Dictionary of North East Dialect, Bill Griffiths, 2005, Northumbria University Press, →ISBN
• “lass”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “lass”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
• Newcastle 1970s, Scott Dobson and Dick Irwin,
• Frank Graham (1987) The New Geordie Dictionary, →ISBN
• A List of words and phrases in everyday use by the natives of Hetton-le-Hole in the County of Durham, F.M.T.Palgrave, English Dialect Society vol.74, 1896,

• SALS, SALs, SASL, sALS, sals

• IPA^(key): /las/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -as

lass

1. singular imperative of lassen
2. (colloquial) first-person singular present of lassen

• “lass” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
• “lass” in Duden online

From Middle High German lōs, from Old High German *los, variant of lōs (“loose; free; lacking; sly, deceitful”). Compare for the short vowel Ripuarian Central Franconian loss, Dutch los. The uninflected stem of this adjective develops regularly into Luxembourgish lass, while the inflected stem yields the doublet lues (“slow, quiet”). See the English cognate loose for more.

• IPA^(key): /lɑs/

  Rhymes: -ɑs

lass (masculine lassen, neuter lasst, comparative méi lass, superlative am lassten)

1. loose, unattached

• lassgoen
• lassloossen

• IPA^(key): /lass/
• Rhymes: -ass
• Syllabification: lass

lass n

1. genitive plural of lasso

Inherited from Old Swedish las. Originally the past participle of a verb derived from Proto-Germanic *hlaþaną (“to load”). Doublet of lada and last.

• IPA^(key): /lasː/

• Audio

  (file)

lass n

1. load

• dra det tyngsta lasset
• liten tuva stjälper ofta stort lass

• lassa

• lass in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• lass in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• lass in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)
• lass in Elof Hellquist, Svensk etymologisk ordbok (1st ed., 1922)

• IPA^(key): /las/

From Middle English los, from Old English los.

lass

1. loss

lass

1. Alternative form of lhose
   • 1867, “A YOLA ZONG”, in SONGS, ETC. IN THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY, number 2, page 84:

     Th' valler w'speen here, th' lass ee chourch-hey.

     The more we spend here, the less in the churchyard.

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 52