Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Sediment settling during fermentation, especially in wine; dregs.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
Wiktionary
- n. The sediment that settles during fermentation of beverages, consisting of dead yeast and precipitated parts of the fruit.
- n. sailing Plural form of lee.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Dregs. See 2d lee.
- n. obsolete A leash.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the sediment from fermentation of an alcoholic beverage
Etymologies
- Old French lies, from Medieval Latin liæ (plural of lias), from Gaulish *liga 'silt, sediment', akin to Welsh llai, Old Breton leh 'deposit, silt' (modern lec'hi 'lees'). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English lies, pl. of lie, from Old French, from Medieval Latin lia, probably of Celtic origin; see legh- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Before dinner, we heard a powerful lecture on the environment by r. martin lees, and then not long after we ate, it was announced there was a singer in the room.”
The Huffington Post: Jimmy Demers: "Is This Really Happening?"
“This they either lick up or drink mixed with milk, and from its lees, that is the solid part, they make cakes and use them for food; for they have not many cattle, since the pastures there are by no means good.”
“Grape juice, when first expressed from its ruddy chalice, is impure and thick; it is left in vessels for a time till fermentation has done its work, and a thick sediment, called lees, has been precipitated to the bottom.”
“He wrote that the animals were being fed waste by-products from a winery, known as lees, as”
“The effect of wealthy undisturbed ease ( "lees") on the ungodly is hardening: they become stupidly secure (compare Ps 55: 19; Am 6: 1).”
“The “passengers” were two strains of bacteria: lactic acid bacteria used in ordinary yogurt and a unique strain of Lactobacillus paracasei cultured from pickles preserved in the dregs of sake called sake lees, which is thought to enhance the body’s immunity to disease.”
“It was applied to "lees" from the custom of allowing wine to stand on the lees that it might thereby be better preserved (Isa.”
“A prophecy in Jeremiah compares them to an old bottle of wine which has aged without being disturbed, its "lees" have been allowed to settle at the bottom (”
“I think they want the Dems to obstruct the nomination and will wait until that time to throw themselves upon the cheesy-puff dust covered mosaic and wailing like cholic stricken baybehs about agendas and whatnot other silliness that lees in their curdled minds.”
“Hopefully this "full court pressure" will include calling out players who are being lees than honest with their criticisms.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘lees’.
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Beer and Brewing
Words about beer and the making of it.
airlock, bung, carboy, diversol, hops, mashtun, beer, sparge, trub, wort, malt, malt liquor and 184 more...
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Mobying Along
looks like there's not an open Moby Dick list. So now there is.
hypos, Manhattoes, circumambulate, mole, grapnels, bowsprit, asphaltic, mazy, tranced, cataract, ungraspable, judgmatically and 227 more...
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Unwanted matter
gangue, dross, slag, scoria, refuse, trash, cinder, ashes, leavings, recrement, debris, waste and 37 more...
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Wort to the wise
Brewing terms
wort, gruit, metheglin, mead, perry, mulsum, finings, irish moss, malt, hops, morat, melomel and 43 more...
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RealLifePixel's Bad-Ass Words
Words so awesome they'll kick your eyeballs' asses!
cucurbitaceous, sacerdotal, loudhailer, bildungsroman, sublation, marmoreal, recusant, velleity, hardscrabble, malinger, miasma, brennschluss and 76 more...
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Moby Dick
Words of interest from the book Moby Dick.
arrant, obstreperously, coffer-dam, farrago, rejoinder, counterpane, hamper, commend, grego, dreadnought, psalmody, expostulation and 85 more...
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Lees
Items of little or no value that are left behind by physical or biological processes other than passing through an alimentary canal. See also Valse's Leftovers and reesetee's Hogwash! for other tak...
lees, dross, dregs, orts, debris, jetsam, flotsam, rubbage, rubbish, trash, refuse, junk and 130 more...
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learning
A list of words whose meanings I am learning, either because a) I don't know the meaning b) I know the meaning, but could stand to better appreciate certain inflections or secondary meanings or c) ...
louche, educe, loam, cob, sclerotic, palliate, axial, syndicalist, ecumenical, sally, fatuous, parvenu and 1381 more...
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favorite words
sawbones, grackle, celadon, brio, loam, trull, mint, saliva, serape, frisson, impasto, reek and 547 more...
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What, another list?
ravishing, ravenous, pronk, brinksmanship, jaspe, mottle, chasm, testy, temperament, ponder, personally, phantom and 206 more...
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Libatious Lexemes
A list devoted to terms related to drinking; particularly alcohol.
reposado, armagnac, rhum agricole, tumbler, claret, medoc, muddler, tun, amontillado, amaro, chartreuse, calvados and 67 more...
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Leftovers
Things of a vestigial nature.
vestiges, remnants, debris, detritus, leftovers, artifact, appendix, molt, clippings, shavings, wisdom teeth, residue and 18 more...
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new to me
stridulation, sherd, lees, lacustrine, coir, eruct, dysgenic, labile, glozening, entrainment, grawlix, maledicta balloon and 20 more...
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simple & useful12
semi-erect, extrusive, volitionally, semicircularity, rotatable, stratagems, superstrate, cyclicity, inelasticity, chomped, unassailable, incontestable and 73 more...
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words from ulyssess
Tweets
Looking for tweets for lees.
reallifepixel It is Celtic in origin. Oct 19, 2009
slumry Very nice. There are often lees in a bottle of wine, too--especially old wine. Jul 11, 2007
seanahan Evidently this means the crud at the bottom of a barrel of wine, sediment left over from fermentation. So essentially, to drink life to the lees you are "enjoying every last drop". It's funny how metaphors get recycled with new words. Jul 11, 2007
seanahan I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore Jul 11, 2007