Forms: 3, 5 lac, 3, 4 lak, 4–5 laake, leke, 4–6 lacke, 5–7 Sc. laik(e, 6 Sc. layk, 7 laque, 3– lake. [Early ME. lac, a. OF. lac, ad. L. lacus basin, tub, tank, lake, pond; the popular form of the word in OF. was lai. The present Eng. form lake (recorded from the 14th c.) may be due to confusion with prec., or perh. rather to independent adoption of L. lacus.]
1. A large body of water entirely surrounded by land; properly, one sufficiently large to form a geographical feature, but in recent use often applied to an ornamental water in a park, etc.
c. 1205. Lay., 1279–80. Ouer þen lac of Siluius & ouer þen lac [c. 1275 lake] of Philisteus.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 2863. A stinkand see, þat semes als a lake of hell.
13[?]. E. E. Allit. P., B. 438. Þenne lasned þe llak þat large watz are.
c. 1375. Sc. Leg. Saints, xx. (Blasius), 226. Quhy thole ȝe þame oure godis tak, & þis to kast þame in þe lak?
c. 1400. Maundev. (Roxb.), xxi. 98. In þe grund of þat lac er funden faire precious stanes.
c. 1450. St. Cuthbert (Surtees), 799. Þar is a grete lake nere hand.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, VII. xii. 150. Of thair bruyt resoundis the river And all the layk of Asia fer and neyr.
1520. Caxton’s Chron. Eng., Descr. Irel., 5/1. The ryver Ban renneth out of the leke into the north ocean.
1657. Howell, Londinop., 382. Being built on the South side of a large Laque.
1696. Whiston, Theory Earth, IV. (1722), 362. There were only smaller Lakes and Seas, but no great Ocean before the Deluge.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1776), I. 84. Nothing can exceed the beauty of the landscape which this lake affords.
1813. Byron, Lett., 5 Sept., in Moore, Lett. & Jrnls. (1830), I. 426. Rogers wants me to go with him on a crusade to the Lakes.
1835. Wordsworth (title), A Guide through the District of the Lakes.
1836. W. Irving, Astoria, I. 210. The navigation of the lakes is carried on by steamboats.
1853. M. Arnold, Sohrab & Rustum, Poems 1877, I. 108. Never more Shall the lake glass her, flying over it.
b. transf. and fig. (perh. in some instances from sense 2).
a. 1225. St. Marher., 14. Ich leade ham … iþe ladliche lake of the suti sunne.
1526. Tindale, Rev. xx. 14. Deth and hell were cast into the lake of fyre.
1669. Sturmy, Mariner’s Mag., Verses a 4. Over the Ocean’s Universal Lake.
1866. G. Macdonald, Ann. Q. Neighb., ii. (1878), 21. Close by the vestry-door, there was this little billowy lake of grass.
1890. W. J. Gordon, Foundry, 109. We can see the wide lake of liquid metal simmering and spurting like porridge.
c. The Great Lake (a phrase borrowed from the North American Indians): the Atlantic ocean. The Great Lakes: the five lakes Superior, Huron, Michigan, Erie, and Ontario, which form the boundary between Canada and the U.S.
1727. C. Colden, Hist. Five Indian Nations, 64. We have put ourselves under the great Sachem Charles, that lives on the other side of the great Lake.
1857. G. A. Lawrence, Guy Livingstone, xxxi. 308. The most terrible tempest that ever desolated the shores of the Great Lake.
† 2. A pond, a pool. Obs.
a. 1000. O. E. Chron., an. 656 (Laud MS.). Þurh ælle þa meres and feonnes þa liggen toward Huntendune porte and þas meres and laces.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 11934. Þarbi satt iesus on his plai, And lakes seuen he made o clai.
c. 1325. Song Mercy, 162, in E. E. P. (1862), 123. We slepe a[s] swolle swyn in lake.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Wife’s Prol., 269. Ne noon so grey goos gooth in the lake.
a. 1400. Pistill of Susan, 229. He lyft vp þe lach and leop ouer þe lake, þat ȝouthe.
a. 1500[?]. Chester Pl. (E.E.T.S.), vii. 291. Lye there, lydder, in the lake.
1609. Sc. Acts Jas. VI. (1816), IV. 432/1. All vtheris, garthis, pullis, haldis, Laikis and nettis.
† 3. [after Vulg. lacus.] A pit; a den (of lions); occas. a grave. Obs.
c. 1320. R. Brunne, Medit., 347. For þey to my soule deluyn a lake.
a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter vii. 16. Þe lake he oppynd and vp grofe it.
1382. Wyclif, Isa. xxxviii. 18. Thei shul not abyden thi treuthe, that gon doun in to the lake.
a. 1450. Cov. Myst. (Shaks. Soc.), 350. Whan he dede ryse out of his lake Than was ther suche an erthe quake That [etc.].
1506. Guylforde, Pilgr. (Camden), 35. And set hym in ye lake of lyons where Danyell the prophete was.
fig. a. 1400. Prymer (1891), 83. He ladde me out of þe laake of wrechchednesse.
† b. An underground dungeon; a prison. Obs.
1382. Wyclif, Jer. xxxviii. 6. Thei putte doun Jeremye in cordis and in to the lake.
1447. Bokenham, Seyntys (Roxb.), 73. Cristyn thus entryd was In to that horribyl and lothful lake.
† 4. Used after L. lacus = a wine-vat. Obs.
1382. Wyclif, Rom. xiv. 20. And the lake is defoulid with oute the citee, and the blood wente out of the lake vn to the brijdels of horsis.
1657. G. Thornley, Daphnis & Chloe, 48. Daphnis cast them [sc. grapes] into the presse, and trod them there; and then anon, out of the Lake, tunn’d the Wine into the Butts.
5. attrib. and Comb.: a. simple attrib., as lake-fishery, -fowl, -level, -shore (in quot. attrib.), -side, -system; also lakeward adj. and adv. Also in the names of fishes, as lake-herring, -shad, -sturgeon, -trout, -whiting, for which see the second member.
1883. F. A. Smith, Swedish Fisheries, 13 (Fish. Exh. Publ.). It is scarcely possible to find the approximate value of the *lake fisheries of Sweden by the official returns.
1813. Hogg, Queen’s Wake, Nt. Second, Wks. (1876), 26. The *lake-fowl’s wake was heard no more.
1860. Maury, Phys. Geog. Sea (Low), xii. § 538. A lowering of the *lake-level.
1896. Howells, Impressions & Exp., 7. In that cold *lake-shore country the people dwelt in wooden structures.
1560. J. Daus, trans. Sleidane’s Comm., 323. After they couche them selues in a pece of grounde, by the *lake side.
1727. Philip Quarll (1816), 31. He attended me to the lake side.
1871. W. Morris, in Mackail, Life (1899), I. 258. A swan rose trumpeting from the lakeside.
1861. Times, 22 Oct., 6/2. Canada and the *lake system press upon and cut into the States on the north.
1871. W. Morris, in Mackail, Life (1899), I. 270. The slope on the *lakeward side.
b. instrumental, as lake-moated, -reflected, -surrounded adjs. c. locative, as lake-diver; lake-resounding adj. Also lake-like adj.
1657. Reeve, God’s Plea, 23. What art thou?… Adam’s Ulcer,… the *lake-diver, the furnace brand, the brimstone-match of that cursed man.
1843. Ruskin, Mod. Paint., I. II. III. iv. 251. White and *lake-like fields [of mist].
1820. Scott, Abbot, xxxviii. The locked, guarded, and *lake-moated Castle of Lochleven.
1821. Shelley, Prometh. Unb., I. i. 744. He will watch … the *lake-reflected sun illume the yellow bees.
1717. Parnell, Homer’s Batt. Frogs & Mice, 5. The *Lake-resounding Frogs selected Fare.
1821. Shelley, Prometh. Unb., II. ii. 38. Like many a *lake-surrounded flute, Sounds overflow the listener’s brain.
6. Special comb.: lake-basin, a depression that contains, or has contained, a lake; lake-country = LAKE-LAND; lake-crater, a crater that contains or has contained a lake; lake-fever U.S. local, malaria; lake-fly U.S., an ephemerid (Ephemera simulans), which swarms in the Great Lakes late in July (Cent. Dict.); lake-lawyer U.S., a jocular name given to two different fishes, the bow-fin and the burbot, in allusion to their voracity; lake-lodge, -ore (see quots.); lake-weed, water-pepper (Polygonum hydropiper). Also LAKE-LAND.
1833. Lyell, Princ. Geol., III. 9. The whole assemblage must terminate somewhere;… where they reach the boundary of the original *lake-basin.
1875. Lowell, Wks. (1890), IV. 363. The greater part of Wordsworth’s vacations was spent in his native *Lake-country.
1833. Lyell, Princ. Geol., III. 197. If we pass from the Upper to the Lower Eifel we find the celebrated *lake-crater of Laach.
1859. Bartlett, Dict. Amer., *Lake lawyer, the Western Mud-fish…. Dr. Kirtland says it is … called the lake lawyer, from its ‘ferocious looks and voracious habits.’
1884. Evangelical Mag., May, 212. [Beavers’] Lodges are built sometimes on the shores of lakes…. These are called *‘lake-lodges.’
1864. T. L. Phipson, Utiliz. Minute Life, x. 256. In the lakes of Sweden there are vast layers of iron oxide almost exclusively built up by animalcules. This kind of iron-stone is called *lake-ore.
1693. Phil. Trans., XVII. 876. ’Tis branched and seeded something like Spinage or Mercury, but leaved rather like *Lakeweed.
1760. J. Lee, Introd. Bot., App. 316. Lakeweed, Polygonum.
b. Lake poets, school, terms casually applied to the three poets, Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth, who resided in the region of the English Lakes: lake poetry, the poetry written by them.
1817. Edin. Rev., Aug., 509. When we have occasion to consider any new publication from the Lake school.
1837. Penny Cycl., VII. 343/2. The appellation of Lake-poets, given to these three individuals after the publication of the ‘Lyrical Ballads.’
1843. H. N. Coleridge, in Stanley, Life Arnold (1884), I. i. 16. What has been somewhat unreasonably called the Lake Poetry.
1874. L. Stephen, Hours in Library, II. 307. To the whole Lake school his [Hazlitt’s] attitude is always the same—justice done grudgingly.
c. Lake-dweller, one who in pre-historic times lived in a lake-dwelling or lake-habitation, i.e., one built upon piles driven into the bed of a lake; lake-hamlet, -settlement, -village, a collection of such dwellings; lake-man = lake-dweller.
1863. Lyell, Antiq. Man, 21. In the stone period the *lake-dwellers cultivated all these cereals. Ibid., 18. The Swiss *lake-dwellings seem first to have attracted attention during the dry winter of 1853–4.
1884. Times (weekly ed.), 19 Sept., 12. Researches into the lake-dwellings of West Scotland.
1865. Lubbock, Preh. Times, 69. The piles used in the Swiss Stone age *Lake-habitations were evidently … prepared with the help of stone axes. Ibid. (1878), 54. A … piece of pottery apparently intended to represent a *Lake-hamlet.
1884. W. Westall, Contemp. Rev., July, 70. The brain of the *lake-man was equal to that of the men of our own time.
1863. Lyell, Antiq. Man, 23. The reindeer is missing in the Swiss *lake-settlements.
1865. Lubbock, Preh. Times, 126. The *Lake-villages of the Bronze age were contemporaneous.
