Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A long rope with a running noose at one end, used especially to catch horses and cattle.
  • transitive verb To catch, tie, or attach with or as if with a lasso.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A long rope or cord of hide (from 60 to 100 feet), having a running noose at one end, used especially in the Spanish (or originally Spanish or Portuguese) parts of America for catching horses and wild cattle.
  • To catch or capture by means of a lasso.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A rope or long thong of leather with a running noose, used for catching horses, cattle, etc.
  • noun (Zoöl.) one of a peculiar kind of defensive and offensive stinging cells, found in great numbers in all cœlenterates, and in a few animals of other groups. They are most highly developed in the tentacles of jellyfishes, hydroids, and Actiniæ. Each of these cells is filled with, fluid, and contains a long, slender, often barbed, hollow thread coiled up within it. When the cell contracts the thread is quickly ejected, being at the same time turned inside out. The thread is able to penetrate the flesh of various small, soft-bodied animals, and carries a subtle poison by which they are speedily paralyzed and killed. The threads, at the same time, hold the prey in position, attached to the tentacles. Some of the jellyfishes, as the Portuguese man-of-war, and Cyanea, are able to penetrate the human skin, and inflict painful stings in the same way. Called also nettling cell, cnida, cnidocell.
  • transitive verb To catch with a lasso.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A long rope with a sliding loop on one end, generally used in ranching to catch cattle and horses.
  • noun computing An image-editing function allowing the user to capture an irregularly-shaped object by drawing an approximate outline.
  • verb To catch with a lasso.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a long noosed rope used to catch animals
  • noun Belgian composer (1532-1594)
  • verb catch with a lasso

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Spanish lazo, from Vulgar Latin *laceum, noose; see lace.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Spanish lazo, from Vulgar Latin *laceum, from Latin laqueus.

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Examples

Comments

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  • lariat

    May 27, 2008

  • Odd that the usual (?) English pronunciations /ləˈsuː/ or /læˈsuː/ are not more commonly reflected in the spelling: 'lassoo' exists (though not yet in OED 1989 edition) but is quite rare.

    August 4, 2008

  • I've heard both /læˈsu�?/ and /'læsoʊ/.

    October 9, 2009