Lave
Pronunciation
- IPA: /leɪv/
- Rhymes: -eɪv
Origin 1
From Middle English laven ("to wash, pour out, stream"), from Old English lafian, Ä¡elafian ("to pour water on, refresh, wash"), from Proto-Germanic *labÅnÄ… ("to refresh, strengthen"), from Proto-Indo-European *lÅbh- ("to strengthen oneself, rest"). Cognate with Old Saxon lavÅn (Dutch laven, "to refresh, revive"), Old High German labÅn, labian (German laben, "to wash, refresh"), Ancient Greek λαπάζειν, ἀλαπάζειν (lapázein, "to empty out, cleanse; to rest, refresh"). The sense of "wash" in West Germanic languages was reinforced due to association with unrelated Latin lavare ("to wash").
Full definition of lave
Verb
- (transitive, obsolete) To pour or throw out, as water; lade out; bail; bail out.
- (transitive) To draw, as water; drink in.
- (transitive) To give bountifully; lavish.
- (intransitive) To run down or gutter, as a candle.
- (intransitive, dialectal) To hang or flap down.
- (ambitransitive, archaic) To wash.
- Alexander PopeIn her chaste current oft the goddess laves.
- 1789, William Lisle Bowles, 'Sonnet I' from Fourteen Sonnets, 1789.the tranquil tide,
That laves the pebbled shore. - 2006, Cormac McCarthy, The Road, London: Picador, 2007, p. 38.The boy walked out and squatted and laved up the dark water.
Related terms
Origin 2
From Middle English lave, laif, lafe ("remainder, rest, that which is left"), from Old English lÄf ("lave, remainder, rest"), from Proto-Germanic *laibÅ ("remainder"), from Proto-Indo-European *lip- ("to stick, glue"). Cognate with Old High German leiba ("lave"), Old Norse leif ("lave"), Old English belÄ«fan ("to remain"). More at belive.
Noun
lave
(uncountable)- archaic or dialectal The remainder, rest; that which is left, remnant; others.
- 1885, Sir Richard Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Night 12.Then they set upon us and slew some of my slaves and put the lave to flight.
- 1896 (posthumously), Robert Louis Stevenson, Songs of Travel and other verses.https://archive.org/details/songsoftraveloth00stevrichGive to me the life I love,/Let the lave go by me...