lace

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /leɪs/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪs

From Middle English lace, laace, las, from Old French las, from Vulgar Latin *laceum, based on Latin laqueus. Doublet of lasso.

lace (countable and uncountable, plural laces)

2. (uncountable) A light fabric containing patterns of holes, usually built up from a single thread.
   • c. 1620, Francis Bacon, letter of advice to Sir George Villiers

     Our English dames are much given to the wearing of very fine and costly laces.

   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter II, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     She was a fat, round little woman, richly apparelled in velvet and lace, […] ; and the way she laughed, cackling like a hen, the way she talked to the waiters and the maid, […]—all these unexpected phenomena impelled one to hysterical mirth, and made one class her with such immortally ludicrous types as Ally Sloper, the Widow Twankey, or Miss Moucher.

   • 1977, Agatha Christie, chapter 4, in An Autobiography, part II, London: Collins, →ISBN:

     Mind you, clothes were clothes in those days. […]  Frills, ruffles, flounces, lace, complicated seams and gores: not only did they sweep the ground and have to be held up in one hand elegantly as you walked along, but they had little capes or coats or feather boas.

3. (countable) A cord or ribbon passed through eyelets in a shoe or garment, pulled tight and tied to fasten the shoe or garment firmly.

   your laces are untied, do them up!

4. A snare or gin, especially one made of interwoven cords; a net.
   • 1600, [Torquato Tasso], “The Second Booke of Godfrey of Bulloigne”, in Edward Fairefax [i.e., Edward Fairfax], transl., Godfrey of Bulloigne, or The Recouerie of Ierusalem. […], London: […] Ar[nold] Hatfield, for I[saac] Iaggard and M[atthew] Lownes, →OCLC, stanza 20, page 23:

     The king had ſnared been in loues ſtrong lace, [...]

5. (slang, obsolete) Spirits added to coffee or another beverage.
   • 2026 February 21 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison], “SATURDAY, February 10, 2025–2026”, in The Spectator, number (please specify the issue number); republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume (please either specify the issue number or |volume=I to VI), New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC:

     He is forced every Morning to drink his Dish of Coffee by itself, without the Addition of the Spectator, that used to be better than Lace to it.

     The spelling has been modernized.

• (cord):
  • (for a shoe): shoelace
  • (for a garment): tie

From Middle English lacen, lasen, from Old French lacer, lacier, lasser, lachier, from the noun (see above).

lace (third-person singular simple present laces, present participle lacing, simple past and past participle laced)

1. (ergative) To fasten (something) with laces.
   • 1718, Mat[thew] Prior, “Alma: Or, The Progress of the Mind”, in Poems on Several Occasions, London: […] Jacob Tonson […], and John Barber […], →OCLC:

     When Jenny's stays are newly laced.

2. (transitive) To interweave items.

   Synonyms: entwine, interlace, interweave; see also Thesaurus:intertwine

   to lace one's fingers together

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     Now we plunged into a deep shade with the boughs lacing each other overhead, and crossed dainty, rustic bridges over the cold trout-streams, the boards giving back the clatter of our horses' feet: or anon we shot into a clearing, with a colored glimpse of the lake and its curving shore far below us.

   • 1895 November, Rudyard Kipling, The Second Jungle Book, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC:

     The Gond […] picked up a trail of the Karela, the vine that bears the bitter wild gourd, and laced it to and fro across the temple door.

   • 1986 April 12, Robin Lippincott, “Passionate Friendship, Old-fashioned Feminism”, in Gay Community News, page 14:

     Flanner's old-fashioned, staunch feminism runs throughout and laces together these letters.

3. (transitive, cycling) To interweave the spokes of a bicycle wheel.
   • 1973 March, Eugene A. Sloane, “How to build and lace a bicycle wheel”, in Popular Mechanics, page 21:

     For these and other reasons, you may want to lace a new rim onto an existing hub, or vice versa. For some reason, probably because of the maze and complex angles of spokes, lacing and building a wheel has for years been a virtual mystery to even skilled home bike mechanics.

4. (transitive) To beat; to lash; to make stripes on.
   • 1692, Roger L’Estrange, “ (please specify the fable number.) (please specify the name of the fable.)”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC:

     I'll Lace your Coat for ye.

5. (transitive) To adorn with narrow strips or braids of some decorative material.

   cloth laced with silver

   • 1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]:

     Under these windows, white and azure-laced

6. (transitive, figuratively) To intersperse or diversify with something.
   • 1982 December 11, Frances Russell, “Economic performance buoys Pawley’s position”, in The Vancouver Sun (The Weekend Sun), Vancouver, BC, page A6:

     The throne speech opening the New Democrat government’s second legislative session Dec. 2 was a modest document featuring caution and pragmatism laced with a few tidbits of democratic socialism.

7. (transitive) To add alcohol, poison, a drug or anything else potentially harmful to (food or drink).
8. (transitive) To cover intricately with bands, strips, or the like, so as to resemble lace.
   • 1951, John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, published 1954, page 27:

     The world we lived in was wide, and most of it was open to us with little trouble. Roads, railways, and shipping lines laced it, ready to carry one thousands of miles safely and in comfort.

• Cael, acle, Cela, Alec, alec, alce, ALEC, cale, Clea, Acle

• IPA^(key): /ˈlat͡se/
• Rhymes: -at͡se
• Syllabification: la‧ce

lace

1. wearily

• laca

lace

1. inflection of lacer:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

• cale, calé
• cela

lace

1. inflection of lazar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative

lace

1. second-person singular present active imperative of laciō

lace

1. alternative form of las (“lace”)

• IPA^(key): /ˈlɑː.ke/
• Rhymes: -ɑː.ke

lāce

1. first-person singular present indicative of lācan

• IPA^(key): /ˈla.t͡sɛ/
• Rhymes: -at͡sɛ
• Syllabification: la‧ce

lace f

1. dative/locative singular of laka

Unadapted borrowing from English lace (wig).

lace f (plural laces)

1. (Brazil) lace wig

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

• Rhymes: -asi
• Hyphenation: la‧ce

lace

1. inflection of laçar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative

lace m or f or n (masculine plural laci, feminine/neuter plural lace)

1. obsolete form of laș

• lace in Academia Română, Micul dicționar academic, ediția a II-a, Bucharest: Univers Enciclopedic, 2010. →ISBN

lace

1. inflection of lazar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative