Word.ws English Dictionary

lee

/liː/

lee noun: a protected cove or harbor, out of the wind. Also the obsolete form of li.

lee: a protected cove or harbor, out of the wind
Image: Jasmin Ros, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

lee (plural lees)

  1. A protected cove or harbor, out of the wind.
  2. The side of the ship away from the wind.
  3. A sheltered place, especially a place protected from the wind by some object; the side sheltered from the wind (see also leeside); shelter; protection.
    • the lee of a mountain, an island, or a ship
    • We lurked under lee.1470–1485 (date produced), Thomas Malory, “(please specify the chapter)”, in [Le Morte Darthur], (please specify the book number), [London: […] by William Caxton], published 31 July 1485, →OCLC...
  4. Calm, peace.

Adjective

lee (not comparable)

  1. Facing away from the flow of a fluid, usually air.
    • lee side, lee shore, lee helm
    Antonyms:
    stoss

Noun (2)

lee (uncountable)

  1. (obsolete) Lees; dregs.
    • A thousand demons lurk within the lee.1745, [Edward Young], “Night the Eighth. Virtue’s Apology: Or The Man of the World Answered. In which are Considered, the Love of This Life; the Ambition and Pleasure, with the Wit and Wisdom, of the...

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Lee

Lee (countable and uncountable, plural Lees)

  1. An English topographic surname from Middle English.
    • Finally, there’s a Stan Lee fly, in honor of the late Marvel Comics visionary.2020 July 29, Jessie Yeung, “Australia names new species after Deadpool, Thor, and other Marvel favorites”, in CNN
  2. A male given name.
    • There was certainly an excess of young men in prison with non-traditional names such as Lee or Dwayne. Indeed, there were so many of the former that I once mooted that all Lees should be arrested at birth and kept in preventative detention.2017, Theodore Dalrymple, The Knife Went In
    • She was joined at the New York City fete by fellow Trump throne-sniffer Lee Zeldin […]2021 September 24, Tom Gogola, “Republican Representative Lauren Boebert Goes Full Blunderbuss”, in The Nation, archived from the original on 01 Jun 2022, retrieved 01 Jun 2022
  3. A female given name.
    • “Nora?” She frowned, puzzled.
      “My name's Leonora,” I said. “At school I was Lee, but now I prefer Nora. I did mention it in the e-mail.”
      I'd always hated being Lee. It was a boy's name, a name that lent itself to teasing and rhyme.2016, Ruth Ware, In a Dark, Dark Wood, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 21
  4. A hamlet in Berrynarbor parish, North Devon district, Devon (OS grid ref SS5546).
  5. A small village in Ilfracombe parish, North Devon district, Devon (OS grid ref SS4846).
  6. A suburb in the borough of Lewisham, Greater London (OS grid ref TQ3974).
  7. A hamlet in Romsey parish, Test Valley district, Hampshire, previously in Romsey Extra parish (OS grid ref SU3617).
  8. A hamlet in Hexhamshire parish, Northumberland (OS grid ref NY9459).
  9. A hamlet in Ellesmere Rural parish, Shropshire (OS grid ref SJ4032).
  10. A village in Buckinghamshire, commonly known as The Lee.
  11. (alternative) Alternative spelling of Lea, the River Lea in eastern England.
  12. A small settlement on the Ross of Mull, isle of Mull, Argyll and Bute council area, Scotland (OS grid ref NM4021).
Show 11 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
  1. A river in County Cork, Ireland, that passes through the city of Cork to Cork Harbour.
    • The River Lee is an important feature of the City of Cork, and on the other side of it is the Albert Quay terminus of the former Cork, Bandon & South Coast Railway.1955 May, Rev. A. W. V. Mace, “An Irish Journey—1”, in Railway Magazine, page 301
  2. A former settlement in Inyo County, California.
  3. A town in Madison County, Florida.
  4. A village in DeKalb County and Lee County, Illinois.
  5. An unincorporated community in Monon Township, White County, Indiana.
  6. A town in Penobscot County, Maine.
  7. A town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts.
  8. An unincorporated community in Elko County, Nevada.
  9. A town in Strafford County, New Hampshire.
  10. A town and village in Oneida County, New York.
  11. A number of townships in the United States, listed under Lee Township.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Lee

Lee

  1. A river in County Cork, Ireland.

Proper noun (3) capitalized: Lee

Lee (plural Lees)

  1. A surname from Chinese.
    • Robert Lee was scheduled to cover a University of Virginia game in the city for the broadcaster on 2 September.2017 August 23, “ESPN reassigns commentator Robert Lee over 'name coincidence'”, in BBC
    1. A surname from Cantonese.
    2. A surname from Hokkien.
    3. A surname from Teochew.
    4. A surname from Mandarin.
    5. A surname from Hakka.

Proper noun (4) capitalized: Lee

Lee (plural Lees)

  1. A surname from Korean; alternative form of Rhee.

Proper noun (5) capitalized: Lee

Lee (plural Lees)

  1. A male given name.
    1. A nickname for various given names with the first syllable as Lee; Clipping of Leo, Leroy.

Also used as

lee is also the obsolete form of li.

lee meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

lee in Hindi

ली

lee in Tamil

லீ

lee in Marathi

ली

lee in Urdu

لی
More languagesFewer languages
lee in Bengali
লি, লী
lee in Telugu
లీ
lee in Malayalam
ലീ
lee in Kannada
ಲೀ
lee in Punjabi
ਲੀ
lee in Gujarati
લી
lee in Odia
ଲୀ, ଲି
lee in Nepali
ली
lee in Malay
lindungan

Examples of lee in a sentence

  • A ship's weather shore is an island's lee shore.
  • A vessel has the weather gauge of another when on the windward side of it, and the lee gauge when on the lee side of it.
  • Lee previously served as mayor of Seongnam, south of Seoul, for eight years.

All 40 example sentences with lee

Antonyms of lee

Forms of lee

Noun
plurallees
Proper noun
pluralLees
alternative formLea
alternative formLeigh
alternative formLi
alternative formLe
alternative formLy
alternative formRhee
alternative formRee

Plural of lee: lees

Origin of lee

From Middle English lee, from Old English hlēo, hlēow (“shelter, protection”), from Proto-West Germanic *hlaiw (whence also Proto-Slavic *xlěvъ), from Proto-Germanic *hlaiwaz (compare German Lee (“lee”), Swedish lä, Danish læ, Norwegian le, Old Norse hlé, Dutch lij), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱley- (compare Welsh clyd (“warm, cozy”), Latin calēre (“to warm up”), Lithuanian šiltas (“warm, pleasant”), Sanskrit शरद् (śarad, “autumn”)).

From Old English lēa, the dative case of lēah (“meadow”), originally to denote someone who lived near a meadow.

From Irish Laoi, perhaps from an ancient personal name.

Words formed from lee

Phrases with lee

Words that rhyme with lee

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about lee

What does lee mean?
Lee means a protected cove or harbor, out of the wind.
What is lee in Hindi?
Lee in Hindi is ली. See Lee meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is lee?
Lee can be a noun, an adjective or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce lee?
Lee is pronounced /liː/.
What is the plural of lee?
The plural of lee is lees.

Words near lee in the dictionary

  1. Ledwith
  2. Ledwiths
  3. Ledyard
  4. Ledyards
  5. ledës-man
  6. lee
  7. Lee algorithm
  8. Lee Center
  9. lee cloth
  10. Lee County
  11. Lee Creek

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lee (page history and authors); Lee (page history and authors); lee (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); lee (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); lee (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); lee (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); lee (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); lee (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); lee (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); lee (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); lee (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); lee (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); lee (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); lee (Nepali, 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.

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

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