lariat
Americannoun
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lariats
plural
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a long, noosed rope used to catch horses, cattle, or other livestock; lasso.
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a rope used to picket grazing animals.
noun
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another word for lasso
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a rope for tethering animals
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of lariat
1825–35; < Spanish la reata the riata
Explanation
A lariat is another word for a lasso, the loop of rope you'd use to catch a steer if you were a cowboy. While lariat and lasso can be used interchangeably, it's more common for U.S. cowboys to call the looped rope they throw around the necks of errant cattle a lariat (or simply a "rope") and to use lasso as a verb. If you want to fit in on a ranch, you might say, "Throw me that lariat so I can lasso that steer." Lariat comes from the Spanish la reata, "the rope."
Vocabulary lists containing lariat
Butterfly Yellow
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True Grit
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Under a Painted Sky
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
To begin to answer this question, Ares decided to investigate whether it was indeed the spliceosome that was making changes to the lariat introns to remove their tails.
From Science Daily ● May 10, 2024
Even the core lingo comes from the Spanish language: lariat, corral, chaps.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 21, 2024
A Reuters video showed a Border Patrol agent using what the news agency described as a lariat to whip at a Haitian migrant trying to enter the United States from Mexico.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 20, 2021
A U.S. law enforcement officer on horseback wielded what appeared to be a lariat, whipping it close to the face of a man wading in the Rio Grande carrying a plastic bag of food.
From Reuters ● Sep. 20, 2021
He tied the lariat rope around her neck and slipped off the bridle to let her graze.
From "Ceremony:" by Leslie Marmon Silko
The collection has eight pieces total, including necklaces, hoops, studs, rings, bracelets and lariats, set in sterling silver and recycled 18-karat gold.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 13, 2024
Recently, researchers at Brown University who were studying the locations of the joining sites in these lariats made an odd observation -- some introns were actually circular instead of lariat shaped.
From Science Daily ● May 10, 2024
Amir’s jewelry company sells a line of lariats, each one featuring a word or phrase.
From Slate ● Oct. 20, 2017
But the heroes of the gathering are the poet lariats … er, laureates … like fifth-generation California cattleman John Dofflemyer who rides herd in the southern Sierra foothills.
From Reuters ● Jan. 31, 2015
“Gather up those lariats and hold the ponies!”
From Ruth Fielding In the Saddle College Girls in the Land of Gold by Alice B. Emerson
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
