Lass

How to spell lass

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce lass

What does lass mean?

1. nounA girl or young woman, often used as an affectionate or regional term.

Lass in a sentence

• The young lass from the village won the local singing contest.

• Every lass in the team trained hard before the regional final.

Where does lass come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

Lass appeared in English around the 1300s as 'lasse', a word for a young unmarried woman, and it is the natural partner of 'lad' for a young man. Its deeper origin is debated, but scholars most often trace it to a Scandinavian source, comparing it with the Old Norse 'laskura', meaning 'unmarried woman', and with dialect words in northern Europe. Some have linked it instead to an Old Swedish term for something idle or unattached, which fits the early sense of a girl not yet settled in marriage. The word took particularly strong root in northern England and in Scotland, where it remains an affectionate everyday term, and it spread widely through Scottish songs and poetry such as the work of Robert Burns. Because the spelling is short and phonetic, the only real point to remember is the double 's' at the end.

How the word is built

• lass (a single root noun, from Middle English 'lasse', a young woman; no prefix or suffix)