lass

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

• IPA^(key): /læs/
• Rhymes: -æs

lass (plural lasses)

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

   "Come and dance, ye lads and lasses!"

2. (Geordie, Mackem) A sweetheart.

Still prevalent in Scottish English, Irish English, and Northern English dialects such as Geordie (Tyneside), Mackem (Wearside), County Durham, Northumberland, Teesside and Yorkshire. Sometimes used poetically in other dialects of English.

• See also Thesaurus:girl

• buffer lass
• hallelujah lass
• lasslorn

• lad
• lassie

• A Dictionary of North East Dialect, Bill Griffiths, 2005, Northumbria University Press, →ISBN
• lass in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• “lass” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2019.
• Newcastle 1970s, Scott Dobson and Dick Irwin,
• The New Geordie Dictionary, Frank Graham, 1987, →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

• IPA^(key): /las/
• Rhymes: -as

lass

1. Imperative singular of lassen.
2. (colloquial) First-person singular present of lassen.

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