Word: list Part of Speech: noun Etymology: From Middle English lī̆st, lī̆ste (“band, stripe; hem, selvage; border, edge, rim; list, specification; barriers enclosing area for jousting, etc.”), from Old English līste (“hem, edge, strip”), or Old French liste, listre (“border; band; strip of paper; list”), or Medieval Latin lista, all from Proto-West Germanic *līstā, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *leys- (“to trace, track”). Cognates * Saterland Frisian Lieste (“margin, strip, list”) * Dutch lijst (“picture frame, list”) * German Low German Liest (“edging, border”) * German Leiste (“strip, rail, ledge; (heraldry) bar”) * Swedish lista (“list”) * Icelandic lista listi (“list”) * Italian lista (“list; strip”) * Portuguese lista (“list”) * Spanish lista (“list, roll; stripe”) * Galician lista (“band, strip; list”) * Finnish lista (“(informal) list; batten”). Pronunciation: /lɪst/ 1. A strip of fabric, especially from the edge of a piece of cloth. Example: 1. Gent[leman]. Well: there went but a paire of ſheeres betweene vs. / Luc[io]. I grant: as there may betweene the Liſts, and the Veluet. Thou art the Liſt. / 1. Gent. And thou the Veluet. Thou art good Veluet; thou'rt a three pild-piece I warrant thee: I had as liefe be a Lyſt of an Engliſh Kerſey, as be pil'd, as thou art pil'd, for a French Veluet. Do I ſpeake feelingly now? Example: “Listen! I see it all — down, down even to the stays! Such stays! Six-eight a pair, Polly, with red flannel — or list is it? — that they put into the tops of those fearful things. I can draw you a picture of them.” 2. Material used for cloth selvage. Example: Previous to the offering up of prayer, however, the persons chosen for this office [of praying for the people] had divested themselves of their boots and put on list slippers, their hands being washed by "the descendants of Levi" at a basin near the Holy of Holies. Example: "How is it, then, that the woman who came into the room about nine left to traces with her muddy boots?" / "I am glad you raise the point. It occurred to me at the time. The charwomen are in the habit of taking off their boots at the commissionaire's office, and putting on list slippers." 3. A register or roll of paper consisting of a compilation or enumeration of a set of possible items; the compilation or enumeration itself. Example: Natures that haue much Heat, and great and violent deſires and Perturbations, are not ripe for Action, till they haue paſſed the Meridian of their yeares: As it was with Iulius Cæſar, and Septimius Seuerus. […] And yet he [Septimus Severus] was the Ableſt Emperour, almoſt, of all the Liſt. Example: "Scrooge and Marley's, I believe," said one of the gentlemen, referring to his list. "Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?" 4. The barriers or palisades used to fence off a space for jousting or tilting tournaments. Labels: historical, in-plural Example: On pain of death, no person be so bold Or daring-hardy as to touch the lists, Except the marshal and such officers Appointed to direct these fair designs. Example: With Truncheon tip'd with Iron head, / The Warrior to the Lists [he] led; […] 5. The scene of a military contest; the ground or field of combat; an enclosed space that serves as a battlefield; the site of a pitched battle. Labels: historical, in-plural Example: The sun’s bright lances rout the mists of morning, and by George! Here’s Longstreet struggling in the lists, hemmed in an ugly gorge. Pope and his Yankees, whipped before, “Bay’nets and grape!” hear Stonewall roar; “Charge, Stuart! Pay off Ashby’s score!” in “Stonewall Jackson’s Way.” 6. A codified representation of a list used to store data or in processing; especially, in the Lisp programming language, a data structure consisting of a sequence of zero or more items. Example: Lisp is an applicative language. This means that it is structured around applying functions (operations) to a linked list of arguments that accompany those functions. […] A function call or function definition is only coded in the syntax of a list, which can be of an indefinite length. Thus, the list is the only data structure for a Lisp program. 7. A little square moulding; a fillet or listel. Example: STRIÆ, in ancient architecture, the liſts, fillets or rays which ſeparate the ſtriges or flutings of columns. Example: A volute is a kind of spiral scroll, used in the Ionic and Composite capitals, of which it makes the principal characteristic and ornament. […] There are several diversities practised in the volute. In some, the list or edge, throughout all the circumvolutions, is in the same line or plane. […] [I]n others, the canal or one circumvolution is detached from the list of another by a vacuity or aperture. 8. A narrow strip of wood, especially sapwood, cut from the edge of a board or plank. 9. A piece of woollen cloth with which the yarns are grasped by a worker. 10. The first thin coating of tin; a wire-like rim of tin left on an edge of the plate after it is coated. 11. A stripe. Labels: obsolete Example: Thus the Aſſe having a peculiar mark of a croſſe made by a black liſt down his back, and another athwart, or at right angles down his ſhoulders; common opinion aſcribes this figure unto a peculiar ſignation; ſince that beaſt had the honour to bear our Saviour on his back. 12. A boundary or limit; a border. Labels: obsolete Example: [W]ere it good / […] to ſet ſo rich a maine / On the nice hazard of one doubtfull houre? / It were not good for therein ſhould we read / The very bottome and the ſoule of hope, / The very liſt, the very vtmost bound / Of all our fortunes.