lave
Part of speech: verb
noun
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: The verb is derived from Middle English laven (“to bathe, wash; to bail or draw water, drain, exhaust; to dampen, wet; to pour; of water, etc.: to flow, stream”), and then partly:
* from Old French laver (“to be washed; to wash”) (modern French laver (“to wash (oneself)”)), from Latin lavāre, the present active infinitive of lavō (“to bathe, wash; to dampen, wet”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *lewh₃- (“to wash”); and
* from Old English lafian (“to bathe; to make wet; to ladle out; to pour”), from Proto-West Germanic *labōn (“to refresh, revitalize; to strengthen”); further etymology uncertain, possibly from Latin lavō (see above) but this does not explain the change in meaning from “to wash; to wet” to “to refresh; to strengthen”. Perhaps Old English lafian is derived directly from the Latin word, and Proto-West Germanic *labōn and words in languages derived from it such as Dutch and German are coincidentally similar to the Old English word.
The noun is derived from the verb.
Inflected forms:
form: laves
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: laving
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: laved
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: laved
pos: verb
tags: past
form: no-table-tags
pos: verb
tags: table-tags
form: glossary
pos: verb
tags: inflection-template
form: lave
pos: verb
tags: infinitive
form: lave
pos: verb
tags: first-person
present
singular
form: laved
pos: verb
tags: first-person
past
singular
form: lave
pos: verb
tags: present
second-person
singular
form: lavest
pos: verb
tags: archaic
present
second-person
singular
form: laved
pos: verb
tags: past
second-person
singular
form: lavedst
pos: verb
tags: archaic
past
second-person
singular
form: laves
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: laveth
pos: verb
tags: archaic
present
singular
third-person
form: laved
pos: verb
tags: past
singular
third-person
form: lave
pos: verb
tags: plural
present
form: laved
pos: verb
tags: past
plural
form: lave
pos: verb
tags: present
subjunctive
form: laved
pos: verb
tags: past
subjunctive
form: lave
pos: verb
tags: imperative
present
form: -
pos: verb
tags: imperative
past
form: laving
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: laved
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: laves
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: To bathe or wash (someone or something).
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: [M]y houſe vvithin the City / Is richly furniſhed vvith plate and gold, / Baſons and evvers to laue her dainty hands: […]
[W]e muſt laue / Our Honors in theſe flattering ſtreames, / And make our Faces Vizards to our Hearts, / Diſguiſing vvhat they are.
VVith Nectar pure his oozy Lock's he laves.
[F]rom my vveary'd limbs I lave / The foul pollution of the briny vvave: […]
Thanks be to God! He laveth the thirsty land! The waters gather; they rush along; they are lifting their voices.
Rita stripped in haste and padded out to the wash-basin and lathered her body all over and laved it several times in fresh water before feeling she had washed off it a contact with Mrs Dibble's dirty old carcass, which shocked the self-esteem of her own shapely body.
gloss: Of a river or other water body: to flow along or past (a place or thing); to wash.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: VVith roomy decks, her Guns of mighty ſtrength, / (VVhoſe lovv-laid mouthes each mounting billovv laves:) / Deep in her draught, and vvarlike in her length, / She ſeems a Sea-vvaſp flying on the vvaves.
Scamandrius vvas his name, vvhich Hector gave, / From that fair flood [the Scamander or Karamenderes River] vvhich Ilion's vvall did lave: […]
[M]ild Parthenope’s delightful Shore, / VVhere huſh'd in Clams the bord’ring Ocean laves / Her ſilent Coaſt, and rolls in languid VVaves; […]
Delicious is your Shelter to the Soul, / As to the hunted Hart the ſallying Spring, / Or Stream full-flovving, that his ſvvelling Sides / Laves, as He floats along the Herbag'd Brink.
Pleas'd I look back and vievv the tranquil tide / That laves the pebbled shore.
[S]o oft the flood, / Jove's offspring, laved his ſhoulders.
There, though the summer day, / Cool streams are laving; […]
Wild sparkles crest the broken tides, / And, flashing round, the vessel's sides / With elvish lustre lave, […]
O Isis! noble Isis [the Thames]! in thee quivers / Eternal Oxford's wondrous Gothic glory, / Poetic towers and pinnacles of pride: / And, loftier in thy power than classic rivers, / Changing thy name by some green promontory, / Thou lavest London with an ampler tide.
gloss: Followed by into, on, or upon: to pour (water or some other liquid) with or as if with a ladle into or on someone or something; to lade, to ladle.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: Then the Lead being melted, […] it is laved into the Pan, […]
gloss: To remove (something), as if by washing away with water.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
transitive
examples: And now, she sat down under the leafless tree, to weep; and in those bitter tears, childhood itself was laved from her soul for ever.
gloss: To surround or gently touch (someone or something), as if with water.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
transitive
examples: [W]hen the midnight moon did lave / Her forehead in the silver wave, / How solemn on the ear would come / The holy mattin's distant hum, […]
Approach, encompassing Death—strong Deliveress! / When it is so—when thou hast taken them, I joyously sing the dead, / Lost in the loving, floating ocean of thee, / Laved in the flood of thy bliss, O Death.
gloss: Chiefly in sexual contexts: to lick (someone or something).
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
transitive
examples: "Who could resist such a temptation?" he drawled, and bent to lave each nipple with his tongue till the satin was wet and clinging.
Liam's mouth was so hot and wet on his cock, his tongue so wicked, laving his shaft expertly with smooth, slick strokes, delving into his slit and swiping away the fluid leaking from it. Why was Liam doing this?
He continued to lave her with gentle laps, while his fingers caressed her until she cried out and her whole body convulsed.
gloss: Followed by out or up: to draw or scoop (water) out of something with a bucket, scoop, etc.; specifically, to bail (water) out of a boat.
pos: verb
tags: archaic
obsolete
transitive
examples: Thou haſt plaid muſique to my dolefull ſoule; / And vvhen my heart vvas tympaniz'd vvith griefe, / Thou lauedſt out ſome into thy heart from mine, / And kept it ſo from burſting; […]
[W]hen I haue laved the Sea dry, thou ſhalt vnderſtand the myſtery of the Trinity; […]
And now, as we were weary with pumping and laving out the water [from the boat], almost sinking, it pleas'd God on the suddaine to appease the wind, and with much ado and greate perill we recover'd the shore, which we now kept in view, […]
Each in his vvay, officiously they vvrought; / Some ſtovv their Oars, or ſtop the leaky Sides, / Another bolder yet the Yard beſtrides, / And folds the Sails; a fourth vvith Labour, laves, / Th'intruding Seas, and VVaves ejects on VVaves.
gloss: To bathe or wash.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
reflexive
examples: Happy he that ſips Eternally ſuch Nectar dovvn, that unconfin'd may Lave, and VVanton there in ſateleſs Draughts of ever ſpringing Beauty— […]
The ſilver Stream her Virgin Coldneſs keeps, / For ever murmurs, and for ever vveeps; / […] / In her chaſt Current oft the Goddeſs laves, / And vvith Celeſtial Tears augments the VVaves.
gloss: To surround as if with water.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
intransitive
gloss: Chiefly in sexual contexts; followed by at: to lick.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
intransitive
examples: Alexander went from laving at her breasts to nuzzling her belly and then his mouth was on her bare thigh, nibbling at her flesh as his fingers delved inside her sheath. She felt herself stretch and squeeze against his long fingers.
He pressed them back down and continued licking, laving at her as her inner muscles contracted around his fingers and she panted out his name. He didn't relent until the last shudder rippled through her beautiful body.
[I]t took only a few moments of his tongue laving at her core before she was exploding in a mind-drugging climax that made her throat sore from her cries.
gloss: An act of bathing or washing; a bath or bathe, a wash.
pos: noun
examples: Once more Arion and his loving nymph / Together rest within their summer cave, / In the green woodland, where the crystal lymph / Through sands and ivy pulsed with ceaseless lave.
gloss: The sea.
pos: noun
tags: also
figuratively
rare
examples: When Nature, languid, seems to rest, / Nor moves a leaf, nor heaves a wave, / And Zephyrs sleep, by Sol caress'd, / And sportive swallows skim the lave; […]
Related words: lather
launder
laundry
lavant
lavatory
lavender
laver
lavish
lavy
lye
Derived words: belave
lave net
laving
unlaved
unlaving
Translations: