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  1. lope love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. v. To run or ride with a steady, easy gait.
  2. n. A steady, easy gait.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. To leap.
  2. To move or run with a long step, as a dog; canter leisurely with a rather long, easy stride, as a horse.
  3. To cause to lope in going or running.
  4. n. A leap.
  5. n. A striding movement; a run made with long steps; especially, a leisurely canter with a rather long, easy stride, as of a horse.
  6. n. A Middle English preterit and past participle of leap.

Wiktionary

  1. v. obsolete To jump, leap.
  2. v. To travel an easy pace with long strides.
  3. n. A horse's easy gait, consisting of long running strides or leaps. A lope resembles a canter.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. obsolete of leap.
  2. v. Prov. Eng. To leap; to dance.
  3. v. U.S. To move with a leaping or bounding stride, as a horse.
  4. v. To run with an easy, bounding stride; -- of people.
  5. n. Prov. Eng. A leap; a long step.
  6. n. U.S. An easy gait, consisting of long running strides or leaps.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a slow pace of running
  2. n. a smooth three-beat gait; between a trot and a gallop
  3. v. run easily

Etymologies

  1. Alteration of loup, from Old Norse hlaupa ("to leap, jump"). See leap. Cognate with German laufen ("walk, run"), Danish løbe, Dutch lopen ("walk, run"), Norwegian løpe ("run"). Compare leap. (Wiktionary)
  2. Middle English lopen, to leap, from Old Norse hlaupa. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “‘Tue-tête means Pénélope is singing as LOUD as she can,’ she explains in a decidedly schoolmistressy voice, cranking up her internal volume dial to better illustrate her point and eliciting a groan from The Boy, who is sleeping in the bedroom, a few metres away.”

    boss

  • “The dancing was the usual hippity-hop or "lope" sideways, each holding hands with his or her neighbours.”

    A Canyon Voyage The Narrative of the Second Powell Expedition down the Green-Colorado River from Wyoming, and the Explorations on Land, in the Years 1871 and 1872

  • “This "lope" as it is called, seems to be a gait peculiarly adapted to the mustang, as they will break into, and keep it up the entire day; evincing no more distress than our ordinary horse does in trotting leisurely.”

    Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches An Autobiography

  • “I will," said Roy, as he called to his pony, who started off on a steady "lope" that rapidly carried him over the ground.”

    The Boy from the Ranch Or Roy Bradner's City Experiences

  • “This animal, if need be, will live on road-side croppings nearly as well as a mule, -- travel all day long on an easy "lope," never offering to stop till fatigue makes him fall, -- and, if you let him, will take you through _chaparrals_, and up and down precipices at whose bare suggestion an Eastern horse would break his legs.”

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864

  • “Already the bay was beginning to feel the run, and Marianne reluctantly drew down to the long lope which is the favorite gait of the cowpony.”

    Alcatraz

  • “Presently he comes down to a long, graceful "lope," and shortly he mysteriously disappears.”

    Roughing It

  • “The horse was much too big for me, and had plans of his own; but now and then, where the ground admitted to it, I tried his heavy "lope" with much amusement.”

    A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains

  • “He said he had horses which would both "lope" and trot, that some ladies preferred the Mexican saddle, that I could ride alone in perfect safety; and after a route had been devised, I hired a horse for two days.”

    A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains

  • “The result is the Thumpr line, and subsequent dyno tests have shown that engine performance with these grinds actually does improve across a broad RPM scale, yet at idle that classic "lope" is readily apparent.”

    Hemmings eWeekly

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synonyms (4)

Words with the same meaning

  1. leap
  1. dance
  1. gait
  1. go

hypernyms (2)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. gait
  1. run

same context (6)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. canter
  1. trot
  1. gallop
  1. gait
  1. stride
  1. pirouette

rhymes (20)

Words with the same terminal sound

  1. Hope
  2. Nope
  3. Pope
  4. bronchoscope
  1. cope
  2. dope
  3. elope
  4. grope
  1. hope
  2. mope
  3. nope
  4. pope
  1. rope
  2. scope
  3. shope
  4. slope
  1. soap
  2. sope
  3. strope
  4. tope

reverse dictionary (3)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. lope
  1. lowpe
  1. Vega

tags (13)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. words
  2. running
  1. abuse
  2. stephenie meyer
  1. twilight
  2. overuse
  1. repeat
  2. thesaurus
  1. writer
  2. sucks
  1. trot
  2. canter
  1. gallop

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Comments

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  • sonofgroucho Just came across this in the excellent first novel "Vernon God Little." Nov 25, 2007

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‘lope’ has been looked up 3374 times, loved by 5 people, added to 38 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 6.