Now dial. Forms: 1 lesan, 4 leese, (pa. t. lase, laas), 4–5 lese, 6– lease, 7– leaze. [A Com. Teut. str. vb. (in Eng. wk. since the 14th c.): OE. lesan (pa. t. læs, pl. lǽson) to gather, glean, corresponds to OFris. lesa to read, OS. lesan to gather (Du. lezen to gather, select, read), OHG. lesan (MHG., mod.G. lesen to gather, to read), ON. lesa to gather, pick, read (Sw. läsa, Da. læse to read), Goth. lisan, galisan to gather. Outside Teut. the Lith. lesù (inf. lesti), to pick up with the beak, may be cognate.]
1. trans. and intr. To glean. † Also with up. (In OE. used in wider sense: to gather, collect.)
c. 1000. Ælfric, Lev. xxiii. 22. Ne ʓe ne gaderion þa eorþe … ac lætað þearfan and ut acymene hiʓ lesan.
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. VI. 68. Who so helpeth me to erie … Shal haue leue … to lese here in heruest.
1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), I. 11. Ruth þat … lase [v.r. laas] vp þe eeres after his [sc. Boaz’] ripe men.
1546. Supplic. Poore Commons (E.E.T.S.), 71. No man myght lease, rake, or gleane his grounde after he had gathered of his croppe.
1612. Court Rolls of Taynton, co. Glouc., That no person shall lease or gleane vntill the corne there growing be carryed.
c. 1640. J. Smyth, Lives Berkeleys (1883), I. 155. How hee set with hand … his beanes; and in the barn leazed in the eare.
1684. Dryden, Theocritus, Idyl iii. 72. Agreo, that in Harvest us’d to lease.
c. 1700. Allen & Ella, in Evans, Old Ball. (1784), II. xliv. 258. Together we’ll lease o’er the field.
1825. Cobbett, Rur. Rides (1830), I. 307. No less than eighty four men, women and boys and girls gleaning, or leasing, in a field of about ten acres.
1879. in Miss Jackson, Shropsh. Word-bk.
2. To pick: in various applications (see quots.).
c. 1420. Pallad. on Husb., VIII. 48. Of wynter fruyt science Yet leseth out the smale, vnto the grete So that the tree may sende her drynke & mete.
c. 1430. Two Cookery-bks., 21. Take Rys, and lese hem clene.
1609. C. Butler, Fem. Mon. (1634), 39. Take four or five good handfuls of wheat or Rye leazed out of the sheaf.
1703. Thoresby, Lett. to Ray (E.D.S.), Leyse, to pick the slain and trucks out of wheat.
1764. Mus. Rusticum, II. 223. What we in the North call leasing, or gathering out, the blighted ears. Ibid., 226. The greatest care should be taken to lease wheat intended for seed.
1891. Hartland Gloss., Lease (laize), to pick out weed-seeds, &c., by hand from imperfectly winnowed corn.
