lea

Pronunciation

• /liː/, /leɪ/^[1]

lea¹ meadow

Etymology

The meadow is inherited from Middle English leie, also lei and lehe,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English lēah (“open field, meadow, clearing, untilled land”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from Proto-Germanic *lauhaz.^[2][7] It is related to Old High German lōh (“grove, clearing”), Old Frisian lāch (“meadow”), Old Saxon lōh (“woods”) and Old Norse lō (“clearing, meadow”),^[3][7][8] and probably to the Flemish element “-loo” of place names such as Waterloo.^[2][5][9] The Germanic word goes back to Proto-Indo-European *lówkos, also the source of Latin lūcus (“grove”) and Lithuanian laukas (“open field”);^{[2][3][8][10]} Etymonline, Barnhart and Hoad take it from Proto-Indo-European *leuk- (“to shine”), the root of light, with the original sense "a clearing",^[2][3][8] while the OED notes that others have proposed Proto-Indo-European *leu- (“to loosen”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A tract of open ground, meadow, pasture or arable land, found in Old English charters,^[5][6] and in Old English mostly as the last element of place names, from about 779.^[3][6] Barnhart's first Middle English form is lehe, about 1230 in the Ancrene Riwle.^[3]

Semantic evolution

After Old English the word survived chiefly in poetic and rhetorical use and in place names,^[3][5][10] where it gives -leigh, -ley and -ly, and through the dative the surnames Lee and Leigh.^[2] Its sense was influenced by confusion with lease, the Old English word for pasture.^[5] In Middle English to have the eye to the wood-lea meant to be interested in wild or forbidden pleasures.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as "ground inclosed, not open".^[11] In Scotland, Ireland and much of England the dialect word, also spelled lay or ley, meant pasture, untilled land or cultivated land under grass.^[12] In farming, usually as ley, it is arable land sown to grass or clover for a few years and then ploughed again;^[13][14] Merriam-Webster takes this sense from the adjective lea, fallow (see Usage notes).^[13]

Timeline

• c. 779 – Old English -lēah in place names.^[3]
• c. 1230 – lehe, open ground, in the Ancrene Riwle.^[3]
• before 1475 – used loosely for ground.^[5]
• 1755 – Johnson: ground enclosed.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. (poetic) A meadow, pasture or grassy field.^[14][13][10]
2. Arable land sown with grass or clover for hay or grazing for a few years; a ley.^[13][14]

lea² measure of yarn

Etymology

The measure of yarn is inherited from Middle English lee, of uncertain origin.^[5][14][9] The OED notes that a gloss in the “Promptorium Parvulorum” suggests it is from French lier (“to bind, tie”), from Latin ligō, but compares lease;^[5][10] Klein takes the French origin as probable.^[9] Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com suggest instead a back-formation from lese, a variant of leash, taken as a plural.^[13][15]

Earliest recorded meaning

A measure of yarn of varying quantity: 1399.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The quantity depended on the fibre and the region.^[5][12] Collins gives 80 yards for wool, 120 yards for cotton and silk and 300 yards for linen,^[14] and Merriam-Webster 300 yards for linen yarn.^[13] In dialect, in Ireland a lea of linen yarn held 300 yards, in Yorkshire it was a seventh of a hank of worsted, and in East Anglia forty threads of hemp yarn.^[12] The word also came to express a yarn's count, the number of leas per pound.^[14]

Timeline

• 1399 – a measure of yarn.^[5]
• 1633 – a Yorkshire spinster tried for stealing ten leas of yarn.^[12]
• 1875 – a technical sense in Knight's Practical Dictionary of Mechanics.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A unit of length for yarn, varying with the fibre, such as 300 yards for linen.^[14][13][5]
2. A measure of yarn by length per unit weight, as the number of leas in a pound.^[14]

Related words

• ley
• light
• lease
• leash

Usage notes

Two minor words have the same spelling.^[13][5] Lea, also ley, meaning fallow or unploughed, comes from the Old English element lǣg- in lǣghrycg, a ridge of unploughed land, and is perhaps related to lie.^[13][10][16] A dialect lea, a scythe, was borrowed from Old Norse lé and is recorded from 1483.^[5][13]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
7. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
8. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b c d Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
14. ^ a b c d e f g h Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
16. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray