Leese

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To forfeit or be deprived of something ; to set free or release from confinement
2. To suffer the loss of something valuable ; to allow to escape or break away from restraint
3. To part with or cease to possess ; to permit or cause to become unbound or free

Etymology: "Leese" is an archaic English verb meaning "to lose," and its surprising twist is that it shares a root with a word meaning almost the opposite. Its Old English ancestor, "lēosan," meant "to lose" and was rooted in the idea of cutting or severing, from a Proto-Indo-European base that also meant "to loosen" or "separate." Over the centuries that Middle English sense of "losing" was gradually pushed out of use, leaving only the fossilized phrase "to leese one's way" or "to be lost." A second strand of the same family points the other way. Old English "lȳsan" and "līesan" meant "to loosen, release, redeem, deliver, liberate," from a Proto-Germanic verb "*lausijaną." Its descendants survive in modern German "lösen" ("to solve, dissolve, loosen") and Dutch "lozen," and the French "léser," which means "to injure or wrong," and the Latin "laesus," meaning "injured," share the root's sense of something being damaged or cut apart.

Synonyms: lose, forfeit, misplace

Antonyms: gain, win, find, keep