lass

noun

Etymology: From Middle English las, lasce, lasse (“female infant or child; young woman”), traditionally derived from Old Norse lǫskr (“unmarried”, adjective); see Middle English las for more. Cognates Scots lass, lassie

1. A girl; also (by extension), a young woman.

   “Come and dance, ye lads and lasses!”

   “[T]heyr founders soules / Haue lost theyr beade rolles, / The mony for theyr masses / Spent amonge wanton lasses; […]”

2. A girl; also (by extension), a young woman.

   “Jenny Hill, a pale, overwrought, pretty Salvation lass of 18, comes in through the yard gate, leading Peter Shirley, a half hardened, half worn-out elderly man, weak with hunger.”

3. A sweetheart.

   “But firſt him ſeemed fit, that vvounded Knight / To viſite, after this nights perillous paſſe, / And to ſalute him, if he vvere in plight, / And eke [also] that Lady his faire louely laſſe.”

   “It vvas a Louer, and his laſſe, / VVith a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, / That o're the greene corne feild did paſſe, / In the ſpring time, the onely pretty rang [ring] time, / VVhen Birds do ſing, hey ding a ding, ding.”

4. A female servant; a maid, a maidservant.

   “[…] I'll tell ye that after we are done wi' our supper, for it will may be no be sae weel to speak about it while that lang-lugged limmer o' a lass is gaun flisking in and out o' the room.”

   “[S]ure aneugh, the lass washed clottered blood aff the carpet the neist day.”

5. A term of address for a woman, or a female animal.

   “As fair art thou, my bonie laſs, / So deep in luve am I; / And I will luve thee ſtill, my Dear, / Till a' the ſeas gang dry.”

   “"Hi, Juno, lass—hi, old girl; down, Daph, down," said Wardle, caressing the dogs.”