lear

• Rhymes: -ɪə(ɹ)

From Middle English laire, leire, lere, northern Middle English variants of lore, loare (“doctrine, teaching, lore”), from Old English lār (“lore”). More at lore.

lear (countable and uncountable, plural lears)

1. (now Scotland) Something learned; a lesson.
2. (now Scotland) Learning, lore; doctrine.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938:

     when all other helpes she saw to faile, / She turnd her selfe backe to her wicked leares / And by her deuilish arts thought to preuaile [...].

   • 1836, Joanna Baillie, Witchcraft, Act 3, p.100.

     'Foul befa' him and his lear too! It maun be o' some new-fangled kind, I think. Our auld minister had lear enough, baith Hebrew and Latin, and he believed in witches and warlocks, honest man, like ony ither sober, godly person.'

   • 1898, Francis James Child (editor), Lord William, or Lord Lundy, from Child's Ballads,

     They dressed up in maids' array,

     And passd for sisters fair;

     With ae consent gaed ower the sea,

     For to seek after lear.

From Middle English learen, leren (“to learn", also "to teach”). Doublet of learn (Etymology 2).

lear (third-person singular simple present lears, present participle learing, simple past and past participle leared)

1. (transitive, archaic and Scotland) To teach.
2. (intransitive, archaic) To learn.
   • 14thC, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canon's Yeoman's Prologue and Tale, from The Canterbury Tales,

     He hath take on him many a great emprise,

     Which were full hard for any that is here

     To bring about, but they of him it lear.

See lehr.

lear (plural lears)

1. Alternative form of lehr

• Arel, Earl, Elar, Lare, Rael, Raël, Real, earl, lare, rale, real

• liar

From Old Galician and Old Portuguese liar (13th century, Cantigas de Santa Maria), ultimately from Latin ligāre, present active infinitive of ligō. Compare Spanish liar.

• IPA^(key): /leˈaɾ/

lear (first-person singular present leo, first-person singular preterite leei, past participle leado)

1. (transitive) to wrap, coil

   Synonym: envurullar

2. (transitive) to link

   Synonym: ligar

3. (transitive) to entangle

   Synonyms: enlear, enredar

4. (transitive) to roll (a cigarette)
5. (takes a reflexive pronoun) to wrestle, fight

   Synonyms: enlear, loitar, rifar, punar, barallar, desortir

• “liar” in Dicionario de Dicionarios do galego medieval, SLI - ILGA 2006–2022.
• “liar” in Xavier Varela Barreiro & Xavier Gómez Guinovart: Corpus Xelmírez - Corpus lingüístico da Galicia medieval. SLI / Grupo TALG / ILG, 2006–2018.
• “lear” in Dicionario de Dicionarios da lingua galega, SLI - ILGA 2006–2013.
• “lear” in Tesouro informatizado da lingua galega. Santiago: ILG.
• “lear” in Álvarez, Rosario (coord.): Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués, Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega.

• IPA^(key): /l̠ʲaɾˠ/

lear m (genitive singular lir)

1. (literary or archaic, except in phrases) sea, ocean

• thar lear (“overseas”)

• Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977), “lear”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN

lear (nominative plural lears)

1. olive tree

From Middle English lere, from Old English *lǣre, gelǣr, from Proto-West Germanic *lāʀi, *lāʀī.

lear

1. empty

• Jacob Poole (1867), William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, page 52