lease

LEES/liːs/

17 meanings of lease

1
nouncountable
The contract or deed that grants someone exclusive use of property for a limited period, or the document that records it.
Before you sign the lease, read the clause about who pays for repairs.
Our lease doesn't allow pets, so we had to find the cat a new home.
Similarcontract, agreement
2
verbcolloquialtransitive
To rent property from its owner under a lease, as the tenant.
We're leasing a two-bedroom apartment near the hospital until our house is finished.
Many small businesses lease their office space rather than buy a building.
Similarrent
3
verbformaltransitive
To let property to a tenant under a lease, as its owner or landlord.
The city leased the old train station to a developer for ninety-nine years.
The family decided to lease the farmland to a neighbor rather than sell it.
Similarrent, let
Note
Landlords lease and landlords let, and the two verbs are cousins: lease came through Old French laisier, 'to let go', partly from Old High German lāzan, a relative of Old English lǣtan, which gave let. Since the tenant's verb looks the same, the preposition shows the direction: an owner leases a building to a company; the company leases it from the owner.
4
nounformalcountable
An interest in land that gives someone exclusive use or occupation of real estate for a limited period; a leasehold.
The restaurant owner sold the lease on her premises to a coffee chain.
The college holds a long lease on the land beneath its stadium.
Similarleasehold, tenancy
Note
In property law the lease is the right itself, not the paper: the contract or deed creates it, but what the tenant holds is an interest in the land, which can often be sold or passed on. Leasehold is the formal name for the same interest, and a tenant is said to hold a lease on premises or on land.
5
nouncountable
A right to the exclusive use of any kind of property, such as a car or a boat.
She took out a lease on a hybrid instead of buying one outright.
The charter company offers a seasonal lease on its smaller sailboats.
Similarrental
6
nouncountable
The length of time for which a lease grants the use of property.
With only six months left on the lease, the shop owner started looking for a new location.
The tenants hope to renew when the lease is up in the spring.
Similarterm, tenancy
Note
Because every lease runs out, the word lends itself to any span of time that will end. Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 (1609) turns a season into a tenancy: "summer's lease hath all too short a date," a term on loan that is already near its close. Everyday speech keeps the sense in talk of time left: months left on the lease, when the lease is up.
7
nouncountable
The temporary assignment of an IP address to a device on a network.
When its lease runs out, the laptop asks the router for a new IP address.
The router's admin page lists every lease it has handed out, along with each device's name.
Note
Networking borrowed the word from property, and the fit is close: an address is granted for a set term, and the device must renew it before it runs out or give it back. So leases expire and are renewed here too, and a laptop away for a week can come home to a different address.
8
verbtransitive
To assign a temporary IP address to a device on a network.
The DHCP server leased the new printer an address the moment it was plugged in.
Home routers typically lease addresses to phones and laptops for a day at a time.
Similarassign, allocate
9
verbtransitive
Of a device on a network, to accept the temporary assignment of an IP address.
My laptop leased a new IP address as soon as it connected to the hotel network.
Smart bulbs lease an address from the router each time they power on.
Similarobtain, acquire, get
10
verbdialectalUKtransitive or intransitive
To tell lies, or to spread lies about someone so as to harm their good name.
Old Martha leased the new vicar up and down the street, though not a word of it was true.
He'll lease to your face and swear blind it's gospel.
Similarlie, slander
Note
Here the spelling hides yet another word: Old English lēasian, 'to tell lies', built on lēas, 'falsehood'. It works with or without an object (to lease is to lie, to lease someone is to slander them) and it belongs to British dialect. Outside it, lie and slander do the same work.

11
verbdialectaltransitive
To pick or choose, to pick out from among others, or to pick something up.
The old shepherd would lease the strongest lambs from the flock for market.
He stooped to lease the coins that had rolled under the bench.
Similarpick, choose, select
12
verbdialectaltransitive
To gather, bringing things together into one place.
Every fall the family would lease walnuts from under the old trees.
By noon the boys had leased enough driftwood to build a fire on the beach.
Similargather, collect
Note
The gathering verb is a separate word that only shares the spelling of the renting one: it comes from Old English lesan, 'to collect, pick, select, gather', and picking out and gleaning grow from the same root. It lives on in regional speech; in general writing gather is safer, since most readers will take lease to mean renting.
13
verbdialectaltransitive
To glean, gathering up what is left in a field after the harvest.
Once the reapers had gone, the women were allowed to lease the stubble for loose ears of barley.
She leased a full sack of beans from rows the pickers had already passed.
Similarglean, gather
14
verbdialectalintransitive
To glean: to go about gathering up whatever has been left behind.
When the market closed, a few old men stayed behind to lease among the empty stalls.
In a hard year the whole village leased in the stubble until dark.
Similarglean, scavenge, forage
15
noundialectalcountable
An open stretch of pasture, or common land.
Sheep from three farms grazed together on the lease below the church.
The children cut across the lease on their way to school, scattering the geese.
Similarcommon, pasture, meadow, green
Note
Grazing land has its own lease, from Old English lǣs, 'meadow', and kin to leasow. Thomas Hardy, in He Never Expected Much (1928), spells it leaze, and his speaker remembers lying on it as a child to watch the sky. It belongs to regional speech; elsewhere the plain words are pasture and common.
16
verbdialectalUKtransitive
To release or let go of something, or to set it loose.
He leased the knot with his teeth when his fingers grew too cold.
Mind you don't lease the calves till the gate's shut.
Similarrelease, loosen, loose, free
Note
Releasing has its own source too: Old English līesan, 'to loosen, release, redeem, deliver', a different root from the landlord's verb, though both began in the idea of letting go. It is British dialect; in general use, release or let go says the same thing.
17
noundialectalcountable
The point on a loom where the warp threads cross one another.
She slid two flat sticks through the lease to hold the warp in place while she worked.
If the lease is lost, the warp threads tangle and have to be sorted by hand.
Similarcross
Note
The weaving word grew out of leash, so its history runs apart from the renting lease and from every other word that shares its spelling. It is regional and stays close to the loom: a reader meets it in weavers' talk, hardly ever in general prose.

Practice

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Origins

Meanings 1–9

From Middle English *lesen, from Anglo-Norman *leser and Old French lesser, laisier (“to let, let go”), partly from Latin laxō (“to loose”) and partly from Old High German lāzan (“to let, let go, release”). The Old High German word is related to Old English lǣtan (“to allow, let go, leave, rent”), the source of let.

Meanings 11–14

From Middle English lesen, from Old English lesan (“to collect, pick, select, gather”), from Proto-Germanic *lesaną (“to gather”).

Meaning 10

From Middle English lesen, from Old English lēasian (“to lie, tell lies”), from lēas (“falsehood, lying, untruth”).

Meaning 15

From Middle English lese, from Old English lǣs (“meadow”), from Proto-West Germanic *lāsu (“meadow”); see also leasow.

Meaning 16

From Middle English lesen, from Old English līesan (“to loosen, release, redeem, deliver, liberate”), from Proto-Germanic *lausijaną (“to release, loosen”).

Meaning 17

Derived from leash.