April 06, 2012
- lace (verb)
- \LAYSS\
- What does it mean?
- 1 : to fasten or join with or as if with a lace2 : to adorn with lace3 : intertwine4 : beat, lash
- How do you use it?
- "So half an hour later, when the rope-ladder had been finished and hung, and the forty-second boot had been laced neatly onto the Centipede's forty-second foot, they were all ready to go out." (Roald Dahl, James and the Giant Peach)
- Are you a word wiz?
The noun and the verb "lace" originate from "laqueus," the Latin word for something used by the ancient Romans. What did the Romans use a "laqueus" for?
If you chose B, you're right! The Romans used to hunt for small animals by laying a loop down on the ground in the path of the animal and using some sort of trigger to tighten the loop and catch the animal. This loop was called a "laqueus" in Latin. ("Lasso" also comes from "laqueus.") "Laqueus" was taken into Anglo-French then into English, where the English version "lace" referred to something (like a shoelace) that drew together two edges of a garment or a shoe. "Lace" also came to be used of a type of ornamentation for clothing made of very thin knotted and woven threads.
