lire

An Italian plural borrowed as it stands: English takes Italian lire directly instead of adding its own -s. The form belongs most naturally to the former currency of Italy, San Marino and the Vatican City, which the euro replaced. It has nothing to do with the dialect words that share its spelling.

The oldest of four unrelated words that share this spelling. Old English līra meant any fleshy part of the body, even the calf of the leg, and its Germanic ancestor meant "thigh" or "groin." Swedish lår, "thigh," is a cognate. The word survives in the dialects of Northern England and Scotland, where it names muscle as opposed to bone and skin. It fits regional writing but sounds unexpected in general prose.

The widening from cheek to whole face was already present in the Old English relative, hlēor, which covered "cheek, countenance, complexion." So when Scottish dialect speaks of a fair or healthy lire, it means the color and look of the skin rather than a single feature. In that use it is closer to complexion than to the "cheek" meaning.

A separate word that only looks like the "flesh" meaning. It comes from Old Norse hlýr, "cheeks," and is related to Old English hlēor and to the word leer. It belongs to Scottish dialect, so outside regional writing it reads as a marked choice. Where no local color is wanted, cheek is the plain word.

A kitchen narrowing of the "muscle" meaning, from the same Old English root. At the table it is the meat carved from the body of a bird, set against its limbs and joints. Its dialect range is narrower too: it belongs to Scotland alone, without the Northern English use that the broader sense has.

A bird name kept in Orkney and Shetland as well as in wider Scottish dialect. It comes from Old Norse líri and has a cognate in Norwegian lira. In ornithological writing the standard name is Manx shearwater. This one belongs to local usage, so it suits writing about the islands rather than field guides.