list

Less common meanings

6. 6
   nouncountable

   In computing, an ordered collection of data items stored together, such as the sequence of zero or more elements used in the Lisp programming language.

   The function returns a list of all matching records.

   Each list in the program stores the user's recent searches.

   Note

   Programmers take the everyday idea and give it a precise contract: an ordered sequence that may hold zero or more items, so an empty list is still a list. In Lisp it is more than a container. Ed Acly, writing in Computerworld in 1985, describes the language as built on applying functions to a linked list of arguments, with function calls and definitions themselves coded in list syntax. Source

   Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 4 facts

   • Lists are sequences represented by linked cells in Lisp. cs.cmu.edu
   • A Lisp list may contain zero items. cs.cmu.edu
   • Ed Acly published the cited article in Computerworld in 1985. en.wikipedia.org
   • Acly describes applying functions to linked argument lists and coding function calls and definitions in list syntax. en.wiktionary.org
7. 7
   tilt (ship)verbintransitive

   Of a ship or other object, to lean or tilt to one side, or to cause it to do so.

   The freighter started to list as seawater poured into the hold.

   After its cargo shifted in the storm, the old freighter began to list to starboard.

   UsageOften with a side: list to port, list to starboard, or list badly.

   Similarlean, tilt, tip

   Note

   The verb travels beyond the sea, too. Bob Foster's Birdum or Bust! (2000) has a road camber cause "the whole outfit to list alarmingly," a vehicle leaning like a vessel. Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact

   • Bob Foster wrote Birdum or Bust!. en.wiktionary.org
8. 8
   ship's tiltnouncountable

   A lean or tilt to one side, especially of a ship, or of a building away from the vertical.

   The tanker developed a severe list after the collision.

   Crew members noticed a slight list to starboard during loading.

   UsageShips develop or have a list, given a side: a list to starboard.

   Similarlean, tilt, slant

   Note

   Ships carry the sense furthest. A list is usually unintended, something the vessel suffers rather than does, and it is given a direction: a list to starboard, a list to port. Ships develop a list, often after a collision or uneven loading, and the word suggests a lean that stays rather than one deliberately steered. Source

   Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 3 facts

   • Uneven loading can cause a ship to develop a list. man.fas.org
   • A ship can list after a collision. en.wikipedia.org
   • A list is a sustained inclination, distinguished from the temporary inclination during a turn. man.fas.org
9. 9
   verbintransitive

   Of a product: to be offered for sale at a stated price, typically the official figure its maker or seller has set.

   Most of the company's blenders list for less than $100.

   The base model lists at just under $30,000, though dealers often add fees.

   UsageThe product is the subject, with for or at: it lists for $99. Compare list price.

   Similarretail, sell

   Note

   It goes hand in hand with list price, and like that phrase it names the official figure rather than what a buyer ends up paying. When the seller is the subject (the shop lists the blender online), the verb has become putting something in a listing.

10. 10
    nounhistoricalcountableplural

    (usually the lists) The fenced ground where knights jousted in a tournament.

    Crowds gathered outside the lists to watch the knights collide.

    They ran down to the lists and Peter came outside the ropes to meet them, his face red and sweaty, his chest heaving.

    1951, C. S. Lewis, Prince Caspian

    Similararena

    Note

    Almost always plural and historical: the lists were the fenced barriers of a tournament, and by easy extension the ground they enclosed. In Shakespeare no one may "touch the lists" but the marshal and appointed officers, Pope's Iliad sends Paris and Sparta's king to fight "in measur'd Lists," and Scott's Ivanhoe has knights riding up and down them. When writing about tournaments, the plural is the form to reach for. Source

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 5 facts

    • The lists were barriers enclosing a tournament ground. en.wiktionary.org
    • Lists also denoted the enclosed tournament ground. wamupdates.worcesterart.org
    • In Shakespeare’s Richard II, Act I, scene iii, the Marshal permits both himself and appointed officers to touch the lists. gutenberg.org
    • Pope’s translation of the Iliad describes Paris and Sparta’s king fighting in measured lists. gutenberg.org
    • Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe describes mounted knights riding up and down the lists. gutenberg.org
11. 11
    listenverbliteraryintransitive

    To listen, or to listen to something.

    List, for the night wind carries strange voices.

    We paused beneath the eaves to list a while.

    Similarlisten, hark

    Note

    Poetry keeps an old verb from Old English hlystan, related to listen. It is often an imperative, a call for silence: Shakespeare's soldiers in Antony and Cleopatra hush each other with "List, list." Without an object it takes to before what is heard, as in Plumptre's Sophocles of 1865: "list to what I speak." Use it only for a deliberately antique effect. Source

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 4 facts

    • The listening verb list derives from Old English hlystan. en.wiktionary.org
    • Listen derives from Old English hlysnan, altered under the influence of Middle English listen, the ancestor of list. The verbs are related, but their immediate Old English sources differ. en.wiktionary.org
    • The quotation occurs among Shakespeare's soldiers in Antony and Cleopatra. shakespeare.mit.edu
    • Plumptre's Sophocles contains the exact words quoted. en.wikisource.org
12. 12
    verbobsoletetransitive

    To engage or enroll someone as a soldier; to enlist.

    "I have a gun, madam," said little Julian, "and the park-keeper is to teach me how to fire it next year." / "I will list you for my soldier, then," said the Countess.

    1822, [Walter Scott], Peveril of the Peak

    Note

    An obsolete transitive verb whose meaning survives in enlist: a recruiter lists a man, and he is listed. Walter Scott's Peveril of the Peak (1822) gives it a playful turn, with the Countess telling young Julian, "I will list you for my soldier, then." Today enlist does all of this work, and list in this sense belongs to period writing. Source

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 4 facts

    • List is an obsolete transitive verb meaning to enlist someone as a soldier. en.wiktionary.org
    • Walter Scott wrote Peveril of the Peak. gutenberg.org
    • The first-edition title page is dated 1822. Actual publication occurred in January 1823; under the requested title-page convention, use 1822. commons.wikimedia.org
    • The speaker and addressee are correct, but the sentence ends “my soldier, then.” gutenberg.org
13. 13
    nounobsolete

    A stripe or band of color crossing a surface.

    Note

    An obsolete sense to recognize in older prose rather than to use. Thomas Browne, in Pseudodoxia Epidemica, describes the ass's cross as "a black list down his back," with another running across the shoulders: a band of color on an animal, not on cloth. A modern writer would simply say stripe. Source

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 1 fact

    • Thomas Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica contains the quoted description of an ass's cross, with one stripe along its back and another across its shoulders. penelope.uchicago.edu
14. 14
    boundarynounobsolete

    A boundary or limit; the border of something.

    Note

    Shakespeare uses it at full stretch in The History of Henrie the Fourth: "The very list, the very utmost bound / Of all our fortunes," pairing it with bound so the meaning cannot be missed. The sense is obsolete; met in old texts, it means the outermost limit, the edge beyond which nothing lies, and it is for reading rather than reviving. Source

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 3 facts

    • Shakespeare wrote the work titled The History of Henrie the Fourth, now known as Henry IV, Part 1. shakespearedocumented.folger.edu
    • The quotation is accurate and pairs list with utmost bound. Hotspur speaks the lines in Act 4, scene 1. folger.edu
    • List has the historical meaning boundary, limit, or border. en.wiktionary.org
15. 15
    skillnounarchaicuncountable

    Art, craft, cunning, or practical skill.

    One man can accomplish with list (magic), that which a thousand could not accomplish, regardless of how strong they were.

    2008, Jon B. Sherman, The Magician in Medieval German Literature (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation)

    For when the guileful monster smiled / Snakes left their holes and hissed,— / And stroking soft his silken beard / Raised creatures full of list.

    1897, Lilian Winser, “Lossenbury Woods”

    Note

    A separate word altogether, not the strip: Old English list, "art, craft." Archaic in English, it tends to pair with cunning, as in The Literary World's "Italian list and cunning" (1877). An anonymous lithograph of about 1842 punned on Liszt's name, since in German List means cunning: the figured bass "overwhelmed by List." Source

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 6 facts

    • The craft sense has a separate Old English source from the strip sense. en.wiktionary.org
    • The Literary World used the quoted wording in 1877. en.wiktionary.org
    • The quotation contains exactly “Italian list and cunning.” en.wiktionary.org
    • The anonymous lithograph dates from about 1842 and has the quoted English rendering. en.wiktionary.org
    • The caricature puns on Liszt and German List. gutenberg.org
    • German List means cunning. en.wiktionary.org
16. 16
    noun

    The selvage of a piece of woven cloth, or a strip cut from that edge and used as material.
17. 17
    noun

    A slender strip of timber, especially sapwood, sawn from a plank or board along its edge.
18. 18
    verb

    To cut away a narrow strip, such as sapwood, from the edge of a board.
19. 19
    verb

    To edge, cover, or decorate something with strips of cloth, or to mark it with similar stripes.

    He raised his eyes and saw / The tree that shone white-listed thro' the gloom.

    1859, Alfred Tennyson, “Vivien”
20. 20
    verb

    To prepare a field in furrows and ridges for planting, with a lister plow or by hoe.
21. 21
    verb

    To enclose a field or area with barriers so as to create ground for combat.
22. 22
    noun

    A small square molding, also called a fillet or listel, used as a narrow band in architecture.
23. 23
    noun

    In ropemaking, a piece of woolen cloth used by a worker to grasp the yarns.
24. 24
    noun

    The first thin coating of tin, or the wire-like rim of tin left along a plate's edge after it has been coated.
25. 25
    verbobsolete

    To sign up for service, especially as a soldier, by putting one's name on the rolls.
26. 26
    verbarchaic

    To feel like doing something or prefer to.

    The spirit seemed to blow where it listed among a historically motley collection of Catholic theologians, Puritan zealots and American squires.

    1994, John [Wyon] Burrow, The Historian: The Magazine for Members of the Historical Association
27. 27
    verbarchaic

    To please or suit someone.

    Might then I depart, and dwell as listeth me, out of all the world?

    2016, Graydon Saunders, Safely You Deliver
28. 28
    nounobsolete

    A wish or longing, or what one feels inclined to do.

    I know too much: / I finde it, I; for when I ha liſt to ſleepe, / Mary, before your Ladiſhip I grant, / She puts her tongue alittle in her heart, / And chides with thinking.

    c. 1603, William Shakespeare, The Tragœdy of Othello