Word.ws English Dictionary

leash

UK/liːʃ/

leash noun: a strap, cord or rope with which to restrain an animal, often a dog.

leash: a strap, cord or rope with which to restrain an animal, often a dog
Image: Tim Dobbelaere from Ieper, Belgium, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

leash (plural leashes)

  1. A strap, cord or rope with which to restrain an animal, often a dog.
    • A stout woman upholstered in velvet, her flabby cheeks too much massaged, swirled by with her poodle straining at its leash1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned
    • like a fawning greyhound in the leashc. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    Synonyms:
    lead
  2. (obsolete) A brace and a half; a tierce.
  3. (collective, obsolete) A set of three animals (especially greyhounds, foxes, deer/bucks, and hares).
    • Coordinate term: brace
  4. (collective, obsolete) A group of three.
    • Sirrah, I am sworn brother to a leash of drawers; and can call them all by their Christian names, as, Tom, Dick, and Francis.c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
    • [I] kept my chamber a leash of days.1609 December (first performance), Beniamin Ionson [i.e., Ben Jonson], “Epicoene, or The Silent Woman. A Comœdie. […]”, in The Workes of Beniamin Ionson (First Folio), London: […] Will[iam] Stansby...
    Synonyms:
    trio
  5. A string with a loop at the end for lifting warp threads, in a loom.
  6. A leg rope.
    • Probably the idea was around before that, but the first photo of the leash in action was published that year1980 February, Drew Kampion, “As Years Roll By (1970's Retrospective”, in Surfing, page 43
  7. A kind of metrical construct in Skeltonics.

Verb

leash (third-person singular simple present leashes, present participle leashing, simple past and past participle leashed)

  1. To fasten or secure with a leash.
  2. (figuratively) to curb, restrain
    • Man is brow-beaten, leashed, muzzled, masked, and lashed by boards and councils, by leagues and societies, by church and state.1919, Boris Sidis, The Source and Aim of Human Progress

leash meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada

leash in Hindi

long cord for dogs
चेन cen, छीन लेना chīn lenā

leash in Tamil

தோல்வார், கற்றை, குழாய், நரம்பு, நார்கற்றை, வடம்

leash in Malayalam

കെട്ടാനുള്ള തോൽവാർ

leash in Kannada

ಮಿಳಿ, ಮಿಣ್ಣಿ
More languagesFewer languages
leash in Punjabi
ਪੱਟਾ
leash in Gujarati
લીશ
leash in Arabic
رِبَاط ribāṭ
leash in Malay
cawak
leash in Persian
قلاده qallâde, افسار سگ
leash in Thai
สายจูง sǎai-juung

Examples of leash in a sentence

  • The employee was put on probation after her latest mistakes and given a short leash.
  • Their supervisors keep the workers on a short leash.
  • The leash runs along a wire.

All 28 example sentences with leash

Synonyms of leash

Antonyms

Forms of leash

Noun
pluralleashes
Verb
third-person singular presentleashes
present participleleashing
past participleleashed
pastleashed

Plural of leash: leashes

Origin of leash

From Middle English leesshe, leysche, lesshe, a variant of more original lease, from Middle English lees, leese, leece, lese, from Old French lesse (modern French laisse), either from Latin laxa, feminine form of laxus (“loose”) or, more probably, from a deverbal of Old French lesser, laissier, from Latin laxāre (“loose”); compare lax. Doublet of laisse.

Words formed from leash

Phrases with leash

Words that rhyme with leash

7 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about leash

What does leash mean?
Leash means a strap, cord or rope with which to restrain an animal, often a dog.
What is leash in Hindi?
Leash in Hindi is चेन (cen), छीन लेना (chīn lenā). See Leash meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is leash?
Leash can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce leash?
Leash is pronounced /liːʃ/ (UK).
What is the plural of leash?
The plural of leash is leashes.

Words near leash in the dictionary

  1. leaser
  2. leasers
  3. leases
  4. leases for lives
  5. leasest
  6. leash
  7. leashed
  8. leashes
  9. leashing
  10. leashless
  11. leashlike

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: leash (page history and authors); leash (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); leash (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); leash (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); leash (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); leash (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-leash.ogg.

Cite this entry: “leash.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/leash. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.