Also 4–7 laske, 5 leske. [? a. ONF. *lasquer = Central OF. lascher (mod.F. lâcher) to loosen, relax:—popular L. *lascāre = class.L. laxāre, f. lax-us LAX a.]
† 1. trans. To lower in quality, quantity, or strength, relax; to thin (the blood); to shorten (life); to alleviate (pain). Obs.
c. 1350. Will. Palerne, 570. Heiȝh hevene king to gode havene me sende oþer laske mi liif daywes wiþ inne a litel terme. Ibid., 950. I wol a litel and litel laskit [i.e., lask it] in hast.
c. 1400. Lanfranc’s Cirurg., 280. Summen seien þat olde men ben able to be kutt, for her blood is miche laskid & her hete. Ibid., 296. Þou schalt laske his greet blood wiþ blood-letyngis.
c. 1440. Jacob’s Well, 196. For þis superfluyte mayst þou neuere ben heyl in soule, tyl þis blood be leskyd in blood-letyng.
a. 1450. Myrc, 1736. Laske hys peynes or cese hys synne.
† 2. intr. To become loose in the bowels; to purge.
1552. [see LAX v.].
1598. Sylvester, Du Bartas, II. i. III. Furies, 529. Soft Child-hood puling … Are apt to Laske through much humidity.
1618. Owles Almanack, 43. Then will they untrusse a hoope and laske like a squirt.
1634. R. H., Salernes Regim., 23. Goates milk … maketh a man to laske.
3. Naut. To ‘go large’; to sail neither ‘by the wind’ nor ‘before the wind.’
1622. R. Hawkins, Voy. S. Sea (1847), 40. When we cast about, she beganne to vere shete, and to goe away lasking.
1626. Capt. Smith, Accid. Yng. Sea-men, 29. Goe large, laske, ware yawning.
1684. Bucaniers Amer., II. (1698), 138. We bore up one point of the compass thereby to hinder her lasking away.
1726. G. Roberts, Four Years Voy., 378. You must put the Ship away lasking, or afore the Wind.
1756. Gentl. Mag., XXVI. 602. The admiral … kept lasking away, angling from the enemy.
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Lasking along, sailing away with a quartering wind.
† 4. Mining. (App. used as a word of command: see quot.) Obs.
1747. Hooson, Miner’s Dict., L iij. Lask [is] a word used in drawing Shafts, Sumps, &c. for Spare Rope, or not enough; as Lask, the Drawer understands he must let down more Rope; and no Lask is that the Rope is too short to hang on the Corfe.
Hence † Lasking vbl. sb., purging, diarrhœa; Lasking vbl. sb. and ppl. a. Naut., ‘(going) large.’
1527. Andrew, Brunswyke’s Distyll. Waters, B iv. The same water … stopped all maner of laskynge.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Lasking (Sea-Term), when a Ship sails neither by a Wind, nor directly before the Wind,… she is said To go lasking.
1882. T. Roosevelt, Naval War 1812 (1883), 120. The Java … came down in a lasking course on her adversary’s weather quarter.
