Etimology
From Middle English lī̆st, lī̆ste (“band, stripe; hem, selvage; border, edge, rim; list, specification; barriers enclosing area for jousting, etc.”), from Old English līste (“hem, edge, strip”), or Old French liste, listre (“border; band; strip of paper; list”), or Medieval Latin lista, all from Proto-West Germanic *līstā, from Proto-Germanic *līstǭ (“band, strip; hem, selvage; border, edge”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *leys- (“to trace, track”). The word is cognate with Saterland Frisian Lieste (“margin, strip, list”), Dutch lijst (“picture frame, list”), German Low German Liest (“edging, border”), German Leiste (“strip, rail, ledge; (heraldry) bar”), Swedish lista (“list”), Icelandic lista, listi (“list”), Italian lista (“list; strip”), Portuguese lista (“list”), Spanish lista (“list, roll; stripe”), Galician lista (“band, strip; list”), Finnish lista (“(informal) list; batten”).
noun
list (plural lists)
A strip of fabric, especially from the edge of a piece of cloth.
Material used for cloth selvage.
A register or roll of paper consisting of a compilation or enumeration of a set of possible items; the compilation or enumeration itself. [from 1600]
(in the plural, historical) The barriers or palisades used to fence off a space for jousting or tilting tournaments.
(in the plural, military, historical) The scene of a military contest; the ground or field of combat; an enclosed space that serves as a battlefield; the site of a pitched battle.
(computing, programming) A codified representation of a list used to store data or in processing; especially, in the Lisp programming language, a data structure consisting of a sequence of zero or more items.
(architecture) A little square moulding; a fillet or listel.
(carpentry) A narrow strip of wood, especially sapwood, cut from the edge of a board or plank.
(ropemaking) A piece of woollen cloth with which the yarns are grasped by a worker.
(tin-plate manufacture) The first thin coating of tin; a wire-like rim of tin left on an edge of the plate after it is coated.
(obsolete) A stripe.
(obsolete) A boundary or limit; a border.
Examples
1. Gent[leman]. Well: there went but a paire of ſheeres betweene vs. / Luc[io]. I grant: as there may betweene the Liſts, and the Veluet. Thou art the Liſt. / 1. Gent. And thou the Veluet. Thou art good Veluet; thou'rt a three pild-piece I warrant thee: I had as liefe be a Lyſt of an Engliſh Kerſey, as be pil'd, as thou art pil'd, for a French Veluet. Do I ſpeake feelingly now?1st Gentleman. Well, you and I are cut from the same cloth. / Lucio. I agree: just as the lists [scraps from the edge of the cloth] and the velvet are from the same cloth. You are the list. / 1st Gentleman. And you are the velvet. You are good velvet; you are a three-piled piece, I'll bet. I would willingly be a list of an English kersey, than be full of piles [haemorrhoids], as you are piled, like a French velvet. Do I speak feelingly now?
1st Gentleman. Well, you and I are cut from the same cloth. / Lucio. I agree: just as the lists [scraps from the edge of the cloth] and the velvet are from the same cloth. You are the list. / 1st Gentleman. And you are the velvet. You are good velvet; you are a three-piled piece, I'll bet. I would willingly be a list of an English kersey, than be full of piles [haemorrhoids], as you are piled, like a French velvet. Do I speak feelingly now?
Why should we not send a message out over London which would attract to us anyone who might still be alive? I ran across, and pulling at the list-covered rope, I was surprised to find how difficult it was to swing the bell.
Previous to the offering up of prayer, however, the persons chosen for this office [of praying for the people] had divested themselves of their boots and put on list slippers, their hands being washed by "the descendants of Levi" at a basin near the Holy of Holies.
"How is it, then, that the woman who came into the room about nine left to traces with her muddy boots?" / "I am glad you raise the point. It occurred to me at the time. The charwomen are in the habit of taking off their boots at the commissionaire's office, and putting on list slippers."
Natures that haue much Heat, and great and violent deſires and Perturbations, are not ripe for Action, till they haue paſſed the Meridian of their yeares: As it was with Iulius Cæſar, and Septimius Seuerus. […] And yet he [Septimus Severus] was the Ableſt Emperour, almoſt, of all the Liſt.
"Scrooge and Marley's, I believe," said one of the gentlemen, referring to his list. "Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?"
Mostly, the microbiome is beneficial. […] Research over the past few years, however, has implicated it in diseases from atherosclerosis to asthma to autism. Dr Yoshimoto and his colleagues would like to add liver cancer to that list.
On pain of death, no person be so boldOr daring-hardy as to touch the lists,Except the marshal and such officersAppointed to direct these fair designs.
With Truncheon tip'd with Iron head, / The Warrior to the Lists [he] led; […]
Ariſe, O Father of the Trojan State! / The Nations call, thy joyful People wait, / To ſeal the Truce and end the dire Debate. / Paris thy Son, and Sparta’s King advance, / In meaſur’d Liſts to toſs the weighty Lance; […]
William de Wyvil, and Stephen de Martival, […] armed at all points, rode up and down the lists to enforce and preserve good order among the spectators.
They ran down to the lists and Peter came outside the ropes to meet them, his face red and sweaty, his chest heaving.
The sun’s bright lances rout the mists of morning, and by George! Here’s Longstreet struggling in the lists, hemmed in an ugly gorge. Pope and his Yankees, whipped before, “Bay’nets and grape!” hear Stonewall roar; “Charge, Stuart! Pay off Ashby’s score!” in “Stonewall Jackson’s Way.”
Lisp is an applicative language. This means that it is structured around applying functions to a linked list of arguments that accompany those functions. […] A function call or function definition is only coded in the syntax of a list, which can be of an indefinite length. Thus, the list is the only data structure for a Lisp program.
STRIÆ, in ancient architecture, the liſts, fillets or rays which ſeparate the ſtriges or flutings of columns.
A volute is a kind of spiral scroll, used in the Ionic and Composite capitals, of which it makes the principal characteristic and ornament. […] There are several diversities practised in the volute. In some, the list or edge, throughout all the circumvolutions, is in the same line or plane. […] [I]n others, the canal or one circumvolution is detached from the list of another by a vacuity or aperture.
Thus the Aſſe having a peculiar mark of a croſſe made by a black liſt down his back, and another athwart, or at right angles down his ſhoulders; common opinion aſcribes this figure unto a peculiar ſignation; ſince that beaſt had the honour to bear our Saviour on his back.
[W]ere it good / […] to ſet ſo rich a maine / On the nice hazard of one doubtfull houre? / It were not good for therein ſhould we read / The very bottome and the ſoule of hope, / The very liſt, the very vtmost bound / Of all our fortunes.Is it good / […] to place so high a stake / On the risky hazard of one doubtful hour? / No, it would be no good for we would read into it that we had reached / The end of our hope, / The very limit, the very utmost boundary / Of all our luck.
Is it good / […] to place so high a stake / On the risky hazard of one doubtful hour? / No, it would be no good for we would read into it that we had reached / The end of our hope, / The very limit, the very utmost boundary / Of all our luck.
Related words
synonyms
(enumeration or compilation of items): see Thesaurus:list
hyponyms
(enumeration or compilation of items): see Thesaurus:list
verb
list (third-person singular simple present lists, present participle listing, simple past and past participle listed)
(transitive) To create or recite a list.
(transitive) To place in listings.
(transitive) To sew together, as strips of cloth, so as to make a show of colours, or to form a border.
(transitive) To cover with list, or with strips of cloth; to put list on; to stripe as if with list.
(transitive, agriculture) To plough and plant with a lister.
(transitive, agriculture, chiefly Southern US) To prepare (land) for a cotton crop by making alternating beds and alleys with a hoe.
(transitive, carpentry) To cut away a narrow strip, as of sapwood, from the edge of.
(transitive, military) To enclose (a field, etc.) for combat.
(transitive, obsolete) To engage a soldier, etc.; to enlist.
(intransitive, obsolete) To engage in public service by enrolling one's name; to enlist.
To give a building of architectural or historical interest listed status; see also the adjective listed.
Examples
As the export market for tropical hardwoods expanded, timber from tropical rain forests very rapidly became the dominant or major forest product, dominant to such an extent that trade figures often do not even list the minor forest products exported, or their value.
to list a door
He raised his eyes and saw / The tree that shone white-listed thro' the gloom.
to list a board
[…] It is therefore ordered that the Maior and Aldermen of Colchester [et al.], shall forthwith procure and raise in the said severall townes, and other pleces adjacent, two thousand horses for dragooners, or as manie as possible they may, for the service as aforesaid, and with all possible speed to send them up to London unto Thomas Browne Grocer, and Maximilian Beard Girdler, by us appointed to list horses for the service aforesaid; […]
"I have a gun, madam," said little Julian, "and the park-keeper is to teach me how to fire it next year." / "I will list you for my soldier, then," said the Countess.
A century later, BR demolished the downside main buildings, so the eastbound and central platforms were promptly listed - which has ensured their survival, albeit increasingly neglected in recent years. This has now been rectified, [...].
Related words
synonyms
(create or recite a list): tabulate; see also Thesaurus:tick off
Etimology
From Middle English list, liste (“ability, cleverness, cunning, skill; adroitness, dexterity; strategem, trick; device, design, token”), from Old English list (“art, craft; cleverness, cunning, experience, skill”), from Proto-West Germanic *listi, from Proto-Germanic *listiz (“art, craft”), from Proto-Indo-European *leys-, *leyǝs- (“furrow, trace, track, trail”). The word is cognate with Dutch list (“artifice, guile, sleight; ruse, strategem”), German List (“cunning, guile; ploy, ruse, trick”), Low German list (“artifice, cunning; prudence, wisdom”), Icelandic list (“art”), Saterland Frisian list (“cunning, knowledge”), Scots list (“art, craft, skill; cunning”), Swedish list (“art; cunning, guile, wile; ruse, trick; stealth”), and possibly Spanish listo (“clever”). It is also related to learn, lore.
noun
list (uncountable)
(archaic) Art; craft; cunning; skill.
Examples
In discussing the Syllabus and the last dogma of 1870, so much must be allowed for Italian list and cunning, or a word-fence. An Englishman, with his matter-of-fact way of putting things, is no match for these gentry.
Sophos, fab[le] 40. "The foxes had heard that the fowls were sick, and went to see them decked in peacock's feathers; said of men who speak friendly, but only with list or cunning within."
For when the guileful monster smiled / Snakes left their holes and hissed,— / And stroking soft his silken beard / Raised creatures full of list.
'The general bass, in its fixed lines, is taken by surprise and overwhelmed by List [[Franz] Liszt]' ; anonymous lithograph .
[Der] Pleier […] provides a 'courtly corrective' to Daniel in the shape of his hero, Garel. The latter wins his fight not by list but through straightforward knightly prowess, […]
It is worth noting that, contrary to Alexios who according to his daughter did not scruple to use any tricks to achieve his goal, Manuel [I Komnenos], as depicted by [John] Kinnamos, preferred "to win by war rather than by list" […].
One man can accomplish with list , that which a thousand could not accomplish, regardless of how strong they were.
Related words
synonyms
See Thesaurus:cunning
Etimology
From Middle English listen, from Old English hlystan (“to listen”), from hlyst (“hearing”), from Proto-West Germanic *hlusti, from Proto-Germanic *hlustiz (“hearing”).
verb
list (third-person singular simple present lists, present participle listing, simple past and past participle list)
(intransitive, poetic) To listen.
(transitive, poetic) To listen to.
Examples
2 [Soldier] Peace, what noiſe? / 1 [Soldier] Liſt liſt. / 2 Hearke. / 1 Music i' th' Ayre.
We list to the trumpings that herald the storm, / To the roll of the drum, and the order to form!
Be of good cheer, and list to what I speak.
Then way what loſſe your honor may ſuſtaine / If with too credent eare you liſt his ſongs / Or looſe your hart, or your chaſt treaſure open / To his vnmaſtred importunity.
Etimology
From Middle English listen, list, liste, leste, lesten (“to choose, desire, wish (to do something)”), from Old English lystan, from Proto-West Germanic *lustijan, from Proto-Germanic *lustijaną, from Proto-Germanic *lustuz (“pleasure”). The word is cognate with Saterland Frisian läste (“to wish for, desire, crave”), West Frisian lêste (“to like, desire”), Dutch lusten (“to appreciate, like; to lust”), German lüsten, gelüsten (“to desire, want, crave”), Danish lyste (“to desire, feel like, want”), Faroese lysta (“to desire”). The noun sense is from the verb, or from Middle English list, liste, lest, leste (“desire, wish; craving, longing; enjoyment, joy, pleasure”), which is derived from Middle English listen, list (verb).
verb
list (third-person singular simple present lists, present participle listing, simple past and past participle listed)
(transitive, archaic) To desire, like, or wish (to do something).
(transitive, archaic) To be pleasing to.
Examples
who liſt to lyue yn quyetnesby me lett hym bewareFor I by highe dyſdayneame made withoute redreſſeand vnkyndenes Alas hathe ſlaynemy poore trew hart all comfortles
If thou beeſt a man, ſhew thy ſelfe in thy likeneſs. If thou beeſt a diuell, take't as thou liſt.
The winde bloweth where it liſteth, and thou heareſt the ſound thereof, but canſt not tel whence it commeth, and whither it goeth: So is euery one that is borne of the Spirit.
What! would you have us truſt to what Chriſt in his own perſon has done without us! This conceit would looſen the reines of our luſt, and tollerate us to live as we liſt: For what matter how we live, if we may be Juſtified by Chriſts perſonal righteouſneſs from all, when we believe it?
Ye are as gods, that can create soil. Soil-creating gods there is no withstanding. They have the might to sell wheat at what price they list; and the right, to all lengths, and famine-lengths,—if they be pitiless infernal gods!
Ye hold me as a woman, weak of will, / And strive to sway me: but my heart is stout, / Nor fears to speak its uttermost to you, / Albeit ye know its message. Praise or blame, / Even as ye list,—I reck not of your words.
License consists in doing what one lists; liberty consists in doing in the right manner the good only; and our knowledge of the good must come from a higher principle, from above.
The spirit seemed to blow where it listed among a historically motley collection of Catholic theologians, Puritan zealots and American squires.
Might then I depart, and dwell as listeth me, out of all the world?
noun
list
(obsolete) Desire, inclination.
Examples
I know too much: / I finde it, I; for when I ha liſt to ſleepe, / Mary, before your Ladiſhip I grant, / She puts her tongue alittle in her heart, / And chides with thinking.I know, [she talks] too much: / I find that, when I have desire to sleep. / Indeed, before your Ladyship I admit, / She keeps a little quiet, / And scolds me with her thoughts.
I know, [she talks] too much: / I find that, when I have desire to sleep. / Indeed, before your Ladyship I admit, / She keeps a little quiet, / And scolds me with her thoughts.
Etimology
Uncertain; possibly from tilting on lists in jousts, or from Etymology 4 in the sense of inclining towards what one desires.
noun
list (plural lists)
(architecture) A tilt to a building.
(nautical) A careening or tilting to one side, usually not intentionally or under a vessel's own power. [from early 17th c.]
verb
list (third-person singular simple present lists, present participle listing, simple past and past participle listed)
(transitive, nautical) To cause (something) to tilt to one side. [from early 17th c.]
(intransitive, nautical) To tilt to one side. [from early 17th c.]
Examples
the steady wind listed the ship
the ship listed to port
Even a small camber one way caused the whole outfit to list alarmingly.