lasso

thumb|upright=1.35|A loose bull is lassoed by a pickup rider during a rodeo in [[Salinas, California, July 2006]]

A lasso or lazo ( or ), also called reata or la reata in Mexico, and in the United States riata or lariat (from Mexican Spanish lasso for roping cattle), is a loop of rope designed as a restraint to be thrown around a target and tightened when pulled. It is a well-known tool of the Mexican and South American cowboys, which was then adopted from the Mexicans by the cowboys of the United States. The word is also a verb; to lasso is to throw the loop of rope around something. ==Etymology== The word lasso seems to have begun to be used as an English word in the early nineteenth century. It may have originated from the Castilian word lazo, which is first attested in the thirteenth century in the sense 'noose, snare', and derives in turn from classical Latin laqueus ('noose, snare, trap, bond, tie').