List

Pronunciation

• IPA: /lɪst/
• Rhymes: -ɪst

From Old English līste "hem, edge, strip", from Proto-Germanic *līstǭ. Cognate with Dutch lijst, German Leiste, Icelandic lista/listi.

The Middle English liste ("border, edging, stripe") gives rise to the sense of "catalogue of names" by ca. 1600.

The Middle English term does not continue the Old English directly, but is rather loaned from Old French liste or Old Italian lista (both meaning "border, band; strip of paper"), which are themselves a loan of the Germanic word.

Full definition of list

Noun

1. A strip of fabric, especially from the edge of a piece of cloth.
• Shakespearegartered with a red and blue list
2. Material used for cloth selvage.
• 1893, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Naval Treaty, The charwomen are in the habit of taking off their boots at the commissionaire's office, and putting on list slippers.
3. (in the plural) The palisades or barriers used to fence off a space for tilting or jousting tournaments.
• 1663, Hudibras, by Samuel Butler, part 1,With truncheon tipp'd with iron head,
  The warrior to the lists he led.
• Alexander PopeIn measured lists to toss the weighty lance.
• 1819, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe, William de Wyvil, and Stephen de Martival, ... armed at all points, rode up and down the lists to enforce and preserve good order among the spectators.
4. A register or roll of paper consisting of an enumeration or compilation of a set of possible items; the enumeration or compilation itself. 1600
• Francis BaconHe was the ablest emperor of all the list.
• 2013-06-29, A punch in the gut, Mostly, the microbiome is beneficial....Research over the past few years, however, has implicated it in diseases from atherosclerosis to asthma to autism. Dr Yoshimoto and his colleagues would like to add liver cancer to that list.
5. (computing, programming) A codified representation of a list, used to store data or in processing; especially, in the LISP programming language, a data structure consisting of a sequence of zero or more items.
6. (obsolete) A limit or boundary; a border.
• ShakespeareThe very list, the very utmost bound,
  Of all our fortunes.
7. (obsolete) A stripe.
8. (architecture) A little square moulding; a fillet or listel.
9. (carpentry) A narrow strip of wood, especially sapwood, cut from the edge of a plank or board.
10. (ropemaking) A piece of woollen cloth with which the yarns are grasped by a worker.
11. (tin-plate manufacture) The first thin coating of tin.
12. (tin-plate manufacture) A wire-like rim of tin left on an edge of the plate after it is coated.

Synonyms

Derived terms

Verb

1. To create or recite a list.
2. To place in listings.
3. (intransitive, obsolete) To engage in public service by enrolling one's name; to enlist.
4. (transitive, obsolete) To engage a soldier, etc.; to enlist.
• Sir Walter ScottI will list you for my soldier.
5. (transitive) To enclose (a field, etc.) for combat.
6. To sew together, as strips of cloth, so as to make a show of colours, or form a border.
7. To cover with list, or with strips of cloth; to put list on; to stripe as if with list.to list a door
• TennysonThe tree that stood white-listed through the gloom.
8. (carpentry) To cut away a narrow strip, as of sapwood, from the edge of.to list a board

Derived terms

• delist
• interlist

From Middle English liste, from Old English list ("art, cleverness, cunning, experience, skill, craft"), from Proto-Germanic *listiz ("craft, art"), from Proto-Indo-European *leys-, *leyǝs- ("track, furrow, trace, trail"). Cognate with Scots list ("art, skill, craft, cunning"), Eastern Frisian list ("cunning, knowledge"), Dutch list ("ruse, strategem, guile, artifice, sleight"), Low German list ("wisdom, prudence, cunning, artifice"), German List ("cunning, ruse, trick, guile, ploy"), Swedish list ("cunning, art, trick, ruse, wile, guile, stealth"), Icelandic list ("art"). Related to lore, lere, learn.

Noun

1. (archaic) Art; craft; cunning; skill.
• 1877, James Clarke & Co, The literary world:In discussing the Syllabus and the last dogma of 1870, so much must be allowed for Italian list and cunning, or a word-fence. An Englishman, with his matter-of-fact way of putting things, is no match for these gentry.
• 1893, Solomon Caesar, Original notes on the Book of Proverbs:"... The foxes had heard that the fowls were sick, and went to see them decked in peacock's feathers; said of men who speak friendly, but only with list or cunning within."
• 1897, Lilian Winser, Lays and legends of the Weald of Kent:For when the guileful monster smiled Snakes left their holes and hissed, — And stroking soft his silken beard Raised creatures full of list.
• 1991, Alexander L. Ringer, The Early romantic era:The general bass, in its fixed lines, is taken by surprise and overwhelmed by List ... (List = cunning); ....
• 1992, University of Reading. Graduate Centre for Medieval Studies, Reading medieval studies:The latter wins his fight not by list but through straightforward knightly prowess, ...
• 2000, Cordula Scholz, Georgios Makris, Peter Schreiner, Polypleuros nous:It is worth noting that, contrary to Alexios who according to his daughter did not scruple to use any tricks to achieve his goal, Manuel, as depicted by Kinnamos, preferred "to win by war rather than by list."
• 2008, Jon B. Sherman, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, The magician in medieval German literature:One man can accomplish with list (magic), that which a thousand could not accomplish, regardless of how strong they were.

From listen

Verb

1. (intransitive, poetic) To listen.
• 1607 — William Shakespeare, iv 3Peace, what noise?
  List, list!
  Hark!
  Music i' the air.
2. (transitive, poetic) To listen to.
• ShakespeareThen weigh what loss your honour may sustain,
  If with too credent ear you list his songs.

Possibly from tilting on lists in jousts.http://www.drbilllong.com/CurrentEventsV/ListWII.html

Noun

1. (nautical) a tilting or careening manoeuvre, which causes the ship to roll. Usually used to describe tilting not under a ship's own power.
2. (architecture) a tilt to a building.

Verb

1. (nautical) to carry out such a manoeuvre

Old English lystan, from Proto-Germanic *lustijaną, from Proto-Germanic *lustuz ("pleasure"). Akin to Old Norse lysta (whence cognate with Danish and Norwegian lyste), Old High German lusten (German gelüsten and obsolete lüsten).

Verb

1. (archaic, transitive) To be pleasing to.
2. (archaic) To wish, like, desire (to do something).
• 1610, , by William Shakespeare, act 3 scene 2If thou beest a man, show thyself in thy
  likeness: if thou beest a devil, take't as thou list.
• 1843, Thomas_Carlyle, , book 3, ch. VIII, Unworking AristocracyYe are as gods, that can create soil. Soil-creating gods there is no withstanding. They have the might to sell wheat at what price they list; and the right, to all lengths, and famine-lengths, — if they be pitiless infernal gods!
• 1959, Leo Strauss, "What is Political Philosophy?", in What is Political Philosophy?, page 51License consists in doing what one lists; liberty consists in doing in the right manner the good only;
• 2007, John Burrow, A History of Histories, Penguin 2009, p. 413:The spirit seemed to blow where it listed among a historically motley collection of Catholic theologians, Puritan zealots and American squires.

Derived terms

• listless

Noun