Now dial. Forms: 1 lǽs, 3–6 lese, 4–5 leese, 5–9 lees, 6 leasse, 6–7 leas, 6– lease, leaze. [OE. lǽs str. fem.:—OTeut. type *lǣswâ; the orig. declension was nom. lǽs, acc., gen., dat. lǽswe (whence LEASOW), but in OE. there appears also an oblique form lǽse. The word has sometimes been confused with the plural of LEA sb.1
The word is prob. etymologically identical with (blód-)lǽs, gen. -lǽswe, (blood)-letting:—OTeut. type *lǣswâ:—pre-Teut. lēd-twā or lēd-swā, f. root of LET v.; the original meaning would thus be land ‘let alone,’ not tilled.]
Pasture; pasturage; meadow-land; common. (Cf. cow-, ewe-, horse-lease.)
a. 1000. Ælfric, Colloq., in Wr.-Wülcker, 91/13. Ic drife sceap mine to heora læse.
a. 1100. Voc., ibid., 177/10. Compascuus ager, ʓemæne læs.
c. 1290. St. Brendan, 134, in S. Eng. Leg., I. 223. An ylle fair ynouȝ, Grene & wiþ wel fair lese.
1297. R. Glouc. (Rolls), 1005. Lese [v.r. leseo] last þer alle winter.
c. 1350. Will. Palerne, 175. Hit … couþe ful craftily kepe alle here bestes & bring hem in þe best lese.
1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), I. 423. In þese hilles þere is Leese i-now for al Walis.
a. 1400. Prymer (1891), 17. We been his peple and scheep of his leese.
1523. Fitzherb., Husb., § 148. Take thy horse and go tedure hym vpon thyn owne lees.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, I. lxiii. 91. The three first Plantaynes grow almost every where … in pastures and leases.
1622. Wither, Fair Virtue, C 6 b. And my Lambkins changed from Brome leaze, to the Mead at home.
a. 1722. Lisle, Husb. (1757), 394. The cattle cannot go into those deep leases, they being under water.
1794. A. Young, in Ann. Agric., XXII. 231. Much … common Down … stocked with bullock and sheep leases.
1880. Jefferies, Hodge & M., II. 277. The dead, dry grass, and the innumerable tufts of the ‘leaze’ which the cattle have not eaten.
1887. Kent. Gloss., Lees, a common, or open space of pasture ground. The Leas is the name given at Folkestone to the fine open space of common at the top of the cliffs.
1898. T. Hardy, Wessex Poems, 196. The years have gathered grayly Since I danced upon this leaze.
Lease sb.2: see LEASE a.
