lath

• IPA^(key): /lɑːθ/, /læθ/

• Audio (US):

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• Rhymes: -ɑːθ
• Rhymes: -æθ

From Middle English laththe, laþþe, earlier lathe, laþe, altered from Old English lætt (“lath”), from Proto-West Germanic *lattu, from Proto-Germanic *lattō, *laþþō (compare Dutch lat, German Latte) from Proto-Indo-European *(s)lat- (compare Welsh llath (“rod, wand, yard”)).

• lat, latt (Scotland)

lath (plural laths)

1. A thin, narrow strip, fastened to the rafters, studs, or floor beams of a building, for the purpose of supporting a covering of tiles, plastering, etc.

   Synonym: lath strap

   • 1887, Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet:

     "You are as thin as a lath and as brown as a nut."

   • 1973, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow:

     The rubble waits him, sloping up to broken rear walls in a clogging, an openwork of laths pointlessly chevroning-flooring, furniture, glass, chunks of plaster, long tatters of wallpaper, split and shattered joists […].

   • 1995, Alan Warner, Morvern Callar, Vintage, published 2015, page 21:

     Lanna says about wishing she was bigger in the chest and I goes that I had nothing to beat there and I was thin as a lat.

2. (geology, petrology) Microscopic, needle-like crystals, usually of plagioclase feldspar, in a glassy groundmass^[1]
3. (mining) one of the sharp-edged, thick planks driven forward to hold back loose earth or mud when digging the way through for tunnelling or spiling. Also called a spill.

• lattice

lath (third-person singular simple present laths, present participle lathing, simple past and past participle lathed)

1. (transitive) To cover or line with laths.

lath (plural laths)

1. Alternative form of lat (“staff; monumental pillar”).

• HALT, thal, halt, Thal