latch, to catch. Spenser, Shep. Kal., March, 93; Macbeth, iv. 3. 195; Mids. Night’s D. iii. 2. 36. An E. Anglian word (EDD.). ME. lacchen (P. Plowman). OE. læccan, to seize, catch.
lato, a mixed metal; ‘latten’. B. Jonson, Alchem. ii. 1 (Surly); laton, Morte Arthur, leaf 44, back, 25; bk. ii, c. 11. ME. latoun (Chaucer, C. T. A. 699). Norm. F. laton, ‘laiton, alliage de cuivre et de zinc’ (Moisy), Med. L. lato (Ducange). See Dict. (s.v. Latten).
launce, a balance. Spenser, F. Q. iii. 7. 4. L. lanx, a scale.
laund, a ‘lawn’, a glade. 3 Hen. VI, iii. i. 2; Drayton, Pol. xxvi. 69. ME. launde, a grassy clearing, a glade surrounded by trees (Chaucer, C. T. A. 1691). Anglo-F. launde, OF. lande; probably of Celtic origin, see W. Stokes, Celtic Dict., p. 239.
launder, one who washes linen. Tusser, Husbandry, § 83. 2. Hence laundered (landered), thoroughly washed, Butler, Hud. ii. 1. 171. ME. lawndere (Prompt. EETS. 257). See Dict. (s.v. Laundress).
laundring, washing gold in aqua regia to extract metal from it. B. Jonson, Alchem. i. 1 (Face).
lautitious, sumptuous, excellent. Herrick, The Invitation, 3. L. lautitia, magnificence.
lave, used of ears: drooping, hanging down; ‘His lave eares’, Wily Beguiled, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, ix. 304; lave-eared, having long drooping ears, Hall, Satires, ii. 29 (Nares); ‘Lave eared, plaudus’, Levins, Manip. Still in use in the north country (EDD.). ME. lave eres (Wars Alex. 4748).
lave, to droop, said of ears, ‘His ears hang laving’, Hall, Sat. iv. 1. 72. Icel. lafa, to droop.
lavender: phr. to lay in lavender, to pawn; Coles, Dict., 1699; ‘Rather than thou shouldst pawn a rag more, I’ll lay my ladyship in lavender, if I knew where’, Eastward Ho, iv. 279 (Nares); to lie in lavender, to be in pawn, ‘a black suit . . . now lies in lavender’, B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of his Humour, iii. 3. In R. Brathwaite’s Strappado for the Devil is an epigram, ‘Upon a Poet’s Palfrey lying in Lavender for the discharge of his Provender’, p. 154 (Nares). Lavendered, pp. ‘Your lavendered robes’, Massinger, New Way to Pay, v. 1 (Overreach).