lake

Meanings

Noun

• A large, landlocked stretch of water.
• A large amount of liquid; as, a wine lake.
• A small stream of running water; a channel for water; a drain.
• A pit, or ditch.
• An offering, sacrifice, gift.
• Play; sport; game; fun; glee.
• A kind of fine, white linen.
• In dyeing and painting, an often fugitive crimson or vermillion pigment derived from an organic colorant (cochineal or madder, for example) and an inorganic, generally metallic mordant.
• In the composition of colors for use in products intended for human consumption, made by extending on a substratum of alumina, a salt prepared from one of the certified water-soluble straight colors.

Verb

• To present an offering.
• To leap, jump, exert oneself, play.
• To make lake-red.

Origin

• Arose from a contamination of the form of inherited Middle English lake with Middle English lac, from Old French lac or Latin lacus. The former, lake, is inherited from Old English lacu, from Proto-West Germanic *laku, from Proto-Germanic *lakō, ultimately derived from Proto-Indo-European *leg-. It is related to Dutch laak, German Low German Lake, Laak, German Lache, Icelandic lækur ("stream").
• Despite their similarity in form and meaning, the word is not related to English lay#Etymology_2, Latin lacus, Scottish Gaelic loch, Ancient Greek λάκκος, all from Proto-Indo-European *lókus.
• From Middle English lake, lak, lac (also loke, laik, layke), from Old English lāc ("play, sport, strife, battle, sacrifice, offering, gift, present, booty, message"), from Proto-Germanic *laiką ("play, fight"), *laikaz, from Proto-Indo-European *leyg-, *loig-, *leig-. Cognate with Old High German leih ("song, melody, music"). Verb form partly from Middle English laken, from Old English lacan, from Proto-Germanic *laikaną, from Proto-Indo-European *leyg-. More at lay, -lock.
• From Middle English lake, from Old English *lacen or Middle Dutch laken; both from Proto-Germanic *lakaną ("linen; cloth; sheet"). Cognate with Dutch lake ("linen"), Dutch laken ("linen; bedsheet"), German Laken, Danish lagan, Swedish lakan, Icelandic lak, lakan.
• From French laque ("lacquer"), from Persian لاک, from Hindi, from Sanskrit लक्ष ("one hundred thousand"), referring to the number of insects that gather on the trees and make the resin seep out. lakh.