Weaving. Also 4 lese, leese, leys, 9 leas, lays. [app. a var. of LEASH sb., perh. confused with an adoption of F. lisse, lice (:—L. līcia, pl. of līcium) = sense 2 below.]
† 1. A certain quantity of thread. Obs.
A Fécamp document of 1235 in Du Cange has ‘In eadem Ecclesia reddit Presbyter … tres leshas cere pro candela.’ Cf. LEA sb.4
1391. Mem. Ripon (Surtees), III. 110. Et in xxviij lb. ceræ pro ij torches ad magnum altare … Et in xxiiij leses lintiaminis emp. pro eisdem.
1453–4. Durham Acc. Rolls (Surtees), 633. Pro 4dd. leese de lechino ad 15d. pro candelis inde fiendis, 5s. Ibid. (1457), 635. 1dd. leys de lichino.
2. The crossing of the warp-threads in a loom; the place at which the warp-threads cross. Phr. to keep, take the lease. (The corresponding Spitalfields term is cross.)
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, 1284. The lease being carefully tied up, affords a guide to the weaver for inserting his lease-rods.
1851. Art Jrnl. Illustr. Catal., p. vii**/2. Taking the ‘lease’ previously to the yarns being submitted to the sizing process.
1883. Almondbury & Huddersf. Gloss., s.v. Lays,… When the warp is made ready for the loom, the threads are separated, and passed alternately above and below a string called the laysband. Where the threads cross, or perhaps the whole arrangement itself, may be considered the lays.
1888. C. P. Brooks, Cotton Manuf., 30. The keeping of the lease. The latter term will be understood by all connected with weaving as being the separation of the threads alternately.
3. = LEASH 7 a.
1824. Lond. Jrnl. Arts & Sci., VII. 184. The improved piece of mechanism … is to be placed immediately over the heddles or leases of the loom.
1831. G. R. Porter, Silk Manuf., 238. Separating the threads of the warp in forming the shed, thus according to the weaver’s phrase augmenting the number of leases in the harness.
4. Comb.: lease-band (see quot. 1883 under sense 2); lease-rod, one of the rods placed between the warp-threads to keep the lease.
1824. Lond. Jrnl. Arts & Sci., 114. The warp is drawn from this roller over a small roller, and from thence is conducted to the lease-rods.
1883. A. Brown, Power-loom (ed. 4), 35. The lease-rods … play a very important part in power-loom weaving…. Their primary purpose is to keep the lease, so that when any of the threads are broken their proper place may be readily found in the web.
