lath
Americannoun
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laths
plural
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a thin, narrow strip of wood, used with other strips to form latticework, a backing for plaster or stucco, a support for slates and other roofing materials, etc.
-
a group or quantity of such strips.
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work consisting of such strips.
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wire mesh or the like used in place of wooden laths as a backing for plasterwork.
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a thin, narrow, flat piece of wood used for any purpose.
verb (used with object)
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laths,
present (3rd person singular)
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lathed,
past participle, past
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lathing
present participle
noun
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one of several thin narrow strips of wood used to provide a supporting framework for plaster, tiles, etc
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expanded sheet metal, wire mesh, etc, used to provide backing for plaster or rendering
-
any thin strip of wood
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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lathsimple
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lathssimple
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have lathedperfect
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has lathedperfect
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am lathingprogressive
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are lathingprogressive
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is lathingprogressive
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have been lathingperfect progressive
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has been lathingperfect progressive
Past
-
lathedsimple
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had lathedperfect
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was lathingprogressive
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were lathingprogressive
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had been lathingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of lath
before 1000; Middle English la ( th ) the; replacing Middle English latt, Old English lætt; cognate with German Latte, Dutch lat
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:
My own report from Dexter was a horror show: massive, insulation-free gaps between interior and exterior walls, revealing chunks of stone and lath that had last seen daylight when James Madison was president.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 21, 2025
The 60 schools in the county that were checked for potentially unsafe ceilings were old buildings constructed using lath and plaster, which can crack and collapse if damaged.
From BBC ● Oct. 18, 2024
Readings on lath and plaster can be misleading, though, so if that’s what you have, look for nails in baseboards, which should point to studs, or for electrical outlets, which usually have a stud alongside.
From Washington Post ● May 2, 2022
The inspector trained his infrared lens onto a misshapen bow in the ceiling, an invisible beam of light searching the layers of lath to test what the eye could not see.
From New York Times ● Jul. 1, 2020
A smile of lath opened amid powdery fallout.
From "Typical American" by Gish Jen
Overhead, wisteria-laden laths shot through with light cast zebraic arrays of shadow, constantly shifting — another Killingsworth trademark that turns the house into a protean phenomenon.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 18, 2019
She dresses in the traditional clothing of the region—a dark skirt, an embroidered huipil made on a waist loom—and weaves green laths into her long obsidian braids.
From Slate ● Mar. 27, 2018
The three of them moved in a row, stepping on the crooked laths, a few paces apart.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 18, 2013
The Westphalen employs an ingenious system: Attached to the steamer's stern is an enormous tarpaulin apron criss-crossed by wooden laths, called a drag-sail.
From Time Magazine Archive
Elsewhere, the exposed laths, themselves rotting away, showed through like the ribs of a starving animal.
From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan
The crucible was lathed out of a solid block of graphite, a form of carbon which conducts electricity well.
From Time Magazine Archive
There was a smell of lubrication and lathed brass.
From "The Martian Chronicles" by Ray Bradbury
The bare lathed walls were hung with fishing jackets, nets, mackerel lines and other shore appurtenances.
From Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery
The houses are in general of the meanest description, seldom exceeding one story in height, and being for the most part weather-boarded without, and lathed and plastered within.
Gone—pushed aside by the march of civilization; supplanted by the modern lathed and plastered attic, with its smoothly laid floor, which harbors neither mice nor memories.
From The Complete Home by Clara E. (Clara Elizabeth) Laughlin
They talked amid the exposed plaster lathing for nearly an hour, then for half an hour more in the street out front.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 26, 2017
For the first six to eight months, I worked at lathing the bottoms of cymbals.
From New York Times ● Oct. 1, 2016
The painting is moving and I’m kind of standing still like a workman on his lathe, lathing a piece of wood.
From Forbes ● Sep. 24, 2014
The walls were stripped down to their lathing, and the new plaster was hand-buffed with beeswax, creating a sheen that, as Ms. Spellman points out, “looks incredible in candlelight.”
From New York Times ● Aug. 8, 2010
Pit-pat, pit-pat went the pony with steady step, now on hard road now on yielding lava mud, across fragile bamboo bridges covered with bamboo lathing, down, down, down till at last we reach the ford.
From Across the Equator A Holiday Trip in Java by Thomas H. Reid
Definitions 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.
