Chiefly Sc. Also 9 lassy. [f. LASS + dimin. suffix -IE (-Y).] A lass, girl.
1725. Ramsay, Gentle Sheph., I. song vi. I yield, dear lassie, ye hae won.
1792. Burns, What can a young lassie,’ i. What can a young lassie do wi’ an auld man?
1802. Mar. Edgeworth, Moral T. (1816), I. ix. 74. What sort of a lassy is the cobbler’s daughter?
1889. Barrie, Window in Thrums, 169. Na, it’s other lassies’ brothers they like as a rule.
Hence Lassiehood, girlhood. Lassieish a., young-womanish.
1857. A. Wallace, Gloaming of life, ii. 28. Where Robin … has to make the important transition from the equivocal garb of lassie-hood into his first ‘corduroys.’
1882. J. Brown, Horæ Subs., J. Leech, etc. 307. There is a somewhat vulgar and lassieish objection to Landseer’s subjects, that they are painful.
