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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

lease.

An interest in land granting exclusive use or occupation of real estate for a limited period; a leasehold.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/liːs/UK, US
  1. An interest in land granting exclusive use or occupation of real estate for a limited period; a leasehold.

    formal
  2. An interest granting exclusive use of any thing, such as a car or boat.

  3. The contract or deed under which such an interest is granted.

  4. The document containing such a contract or deed.

  5. The period of such an interest.

  6. Short for DHCP lease The temporary assignment of an IP address to a networked device.

    abbreviation · alt-of
Where this word comes from

From Middle English *lesen, from Anglo-Norman *leser, Old French lesser, laisier (“to let, let go”), partly from Latin laxō (“to loose”) and partly from Old High German lāzan (“to let, let go, release”) (German lassen), cognate with Old English lǣtan (“to allow, let go, leave, rent”) whence let.

verb/liːs/UK, US
  1. To grant a lease as a landlord; to let.

    formal · transitive
  2. To hold a lease as a tenant; to rent.

    informal · transitive
    I'm leasing a small apartment in Runcorn for a month while I'm there for work.
  3. To assign a temporary IP address to (a networked device).

    transitive
  4. To accept such an assignment of (an IP address).

    transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English *lesen, from Anglo-Norman *leser, Old French lesser, laisier (“to let, let go”), partly from Latin laxō (“to loose”) and partly from Old High German lāzan (“to let, let go, release”) (German lassen), cognate with Old English lǣtan (“to allow, let go, leave, rent”) whence let.

verb/liːs/UK, US
  1. To gather.

    dialectal · transitive
  2. To pick, select, pick out; to pick up.

    dialectal · transitive
  3. To glean.

    dialectal · transitive
  4. To glean, gather up leavings.

    dialectal · intransitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English lesen, from Old English lesan (“to collect, pick, select, gather”), from Proto-West Germanic *lesan, from Proto-Germanic *lesaną (“to gather”).

verb/liːs/UK, US
  1. To tell lies; tell lies about; slander; calumniate.

    UK · ambitransitive · dialectal
Where this word comes from

From Middle English lesen, from Old English lēasian (“to lie, tell lies”), from lēas (“falsehood, lying, untruth, mistake”).

noun/liːs/UK, US
  1. An open pasture or common.

    dialectal
Where this word comes from

From Middle English lese, from Old English lǣs (“meadow”), from Proto-West Germanic *lāsu (“meadow”). See also leasow.

noun/liːs/UK, US
  1. The place at which the warp-threads cross on a loom.

    dialectal
Where this word comes from

From leash.

verb/liːs/UK, US
  1. Alternative form of leese (“to release”)

    alt-of · alternative · dialectal
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.