Etymology: Late Old English lǽð strong neuter, corresponding to Old Norse láð (poetic) landed possession, land < Old Germanic *lǣþo^m; according to some scholars cognate with -lǣđ- in Gothic un-lēds poor (? lit. without landed possessions), Old English un-lǽd(e wretched.The form lathe (recorded from 14th cent.) would, if it represented a pronunciation handed down by oral tradition, imply that the Old English word had a short vowel, and connection with laðian , to summon, would then be possible. Probably, however, the word had little oral currency, so that its form may have been influenced by the spelling of early documents. The identity of the word with Old Norse láð (which involves the conclusion that the Old English form was lǽð ) is rendered almost certain by the following facts. (1) The Old English word is in one instance recorded in the sense of the Old Norse word, viz., in the legal formula ‘ne gyrne ic þines ne lǽðes ne landes ne sace ne sócne’ (Schmid, Gesetze der Angelsachsen, apparently xi), where it has the same alliterative association as in the frequent Old Norse phrase ‘land ok láð’. (2) This alliterative association recurs in quot. ?a1100 at main sense, where the word has its specific Kentish application. (3) Quot. c1120 at main sense implies that ‘the lathe of Aylesford’ was the territory that was under a jurisdiction attached to the manor of Aylesford, so that the development of the special Kentish use from the general sense of ‘landed possession’ presents no difficulty. The possibility is not excluded that the Kentish term may represent a coalescence of the original Old English lǽð , territory, with other words of similar form: compare Old Norse leið feminine a court or judicial assembly, and Old English -lǽð or -lǽðe in mótlǽðu plural, attendances at a ‘moot’ or assembly (? related to Old Norse líða , Old English líðan , to go); also modern Danish lægd ‘division of a parish for military purposes’ ( < root of lie v.¹, lay v.¹). The latinized leidegrevei (see b) may, as is commonly assumed, represent an Old English *læðgeréfan ‘lathe-reeves’; but the text is of little authority.

Etymology: < Old Norse hlaða (Swedish lada , Danish lade ), connected with hlaða lade v.

Etymology: Of obscure history; probably cognate with Danish lad , in drejelad turning-lathe, also in other compounds in which it has the general sense of ‘stand, supporting framework’, e.g. savelad saw-bench, sengelad bedstead, tøndelad gantry, væverlad loom. The Danish word is probably a special use of lad pile, heap regularly built up < Old Norse hlað , related to hlaða to lade v.If the coincidence in form and meaning with Danish lad be not purely accidental, the English word must, not withstanding its late occurrence, have come down from the time of the Danish settlements in England. (A native Old English cognate is out of the question, as it would have had d , not ð .) The Danish word, in compounds, is cited by Kalkar from the 15–16th cent. As the older form of turning-lathe, used as late as the 19th century, was worked by means of a spring-lath overhead (see drawing in Encycl. Brit. ed. 9, XIV. 323), it is not wholly impossible that the word may be a modification of lath n.; but against this is the occurrence of the word in the wider Danish sense (see sense 1). The Old Norse lauð (in dictionaries miswritten löð, and explained ‘smith's lathe’) is commonly given as the etymon, but erroneously. All that is known of the word is that it was used in compounds to form poetic synonyms for gold.

Etymology: Cognate with Swedish lad , German lade , of the same meaning; compare lathe n.³ and lay n.⁸

Etymology: Old English laðian = Old Frisian lathia, ladia, Old Saxon laðian, Old High German ladôn (Middle High German, modern German laden), Old Norse laða, Gothic laþôn; cognate with Gothic laþaleikô willingly.