lope

From Middle English lopen, from Old Norse hlaupa (“to leap, jump”).^[1] See leap. Cognate with German laufen (“walk, run”), Danish løbe (“run”), Dutch lopen (“walk, run”), Norwegian løpe (“run”). Doublet of leap.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ləʊp/
• (US) IPA^(key): /loʊp/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊp
• Homophone: Lop

lope (third-person singular simple present lopes, present participle loping, simple past and past participle loped)

1. To travel an easy pace with long strides.

   He loped along, hour after hour, not fast but steady and covering much ground.

   • 1927, William Byron Mowery, Pirates Of The Muskeg:

     Scott hurried down the dark path, lifted the canoe from the muddy rock to the moss, took out the packs, and loped back. toward the cabin. As he passed the window he glanced inside.

   • 1957, Jack Kerouac, chapter 5, in On the Road, Viking Press, →OCLC, part 5:

     And as we waited in the car Victor got out and loped over to the house and said a few words to an old lady, […]

   • 1986, John le Carré, A Perfect Spy:

     “And the holidays?” Murgo proposed one evening as they loped down a bridlepath past lovers fondling in the grass. “Fun, are they? High living?”

2. (obsolete, intransitive) To jump, leap.
   • 1470–1485 (date produced), Thomas Malory, “Capitulum xxxv”, in [Le Morte Darthur], book IX, [London: […] by William Caxton], published 31 July 1485, →OCLC; republished as H[einrich] Oskar Sommer, editor, Le Morte Darthur […], London: David Nutt, […], 1889, →OCLC:

     And as he cam by a ryver, in hys woodnes he wolde have made hys horse to have lopyn over the watir; and the horse fayled footyng and felle in the ryver

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 1621-22, Thomas Middleton et al, The Spanish Gypsy

     he that lopes on the ropes

• elope
• interlope

lope (plural lopes)

1. An easy pace with long strides.
   • 1931, Home Geographic Monthly, volumes 1-2, page 45:

     Hares have larger, leaner bodies, longer legs, and longer ears than the true rabbit. They also run with a lope instead of a hop. It is thought that they developed this more stream-lined body and swifter gait from running on the plains […]

   • 2022 October 25, Nghi Vo, Into the Riverlands, Tordotcom, →ISBN:

     Then he was gone, not with the flashing quick steps that Lao Bingyi and Wei Jintai had employed but with the long lope of a wolf that knows to pace himself for a hunt.

• LEPO, Pole, olpe, pleo-, pole

lope

1. plural of loop

lope

1. indefinite dative/ablative singular of lopë

Borrowed from English rope.

lope

1. rope

• Audio:

  (file)

lope

1. (dated or formal) singular present subjunctive of lopen

• loep, poel

Clipping of lopaille, clipping of lopaillekem, louchébem for copaille (homosexual partner), derogatory form of copain.

• IPA^(key): /lɔp/

• Audio:

  (file)

lope f (plural lopes)

1. (slang, derogatory) male homosexual
2. (by extension, derogatory) cowardly, characterless man
   • 1994, Yasmina Reza, ‘Art’:

     Marc. Si c’est grâce à lui que tu es revenu tendre ton autre joue, tu peux le remercier. Il a fait de toi une lope, mais tu es content, c’est l’essentiel.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

• “lope”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.) Related to Northern Sami lohpi.

lope

1. promise

• lopediđ

• lope in Marja-Liisa Olthuis, Taarna Valtonen, Miina Seurujärvi and Trond Trosterud (2015–2022) Nettidigisäänih Anarâškiela-suomakielâ-anarâškielâ sänikirje‎^[1], Tromsø: UiT

• Koponen, Eino, Ruppel, Klaas, Aapala, Kirsti, editors (2002–2008), Álgu database: Etymological database of the Saami languages‎^[2], Helsinki: Research Institute for the Languages of Finland

lope

1. inflection of lopa (“cutting off”):
   1. locative singular
   2. accusative plural

• loope

Suppletive:

• For forms starting with l-, from Old Frisian hlāpa, from Proto-West Germanic *hlaupan. Cognates include West Frisian ljeppe and German laufen.
• For forms starting with r-, from Old Frisian renna, from Proto-West Germanic *rinnan. Cognates include West Frisian rinne and German rennen.

• IPA^(key): /ˈloːpə/
• Hyphenation: lo‧pe

lope

1. (intransitive) to run
2. (intransitive) to flow
3. (intransitive) to sprout
4. (intransitive, + mäd) to interact (with)

• Marron C. Fort (2015) “lope”, in Saterfriesisches Wörterbuch mit einer phonologischen und grammatischen Übersicht, Buske, →ISBN