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PlainSpell

lass

/læs/noun

lass is a noun meaning “A girl; also (by extension), a young woman” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled L-A-S-S and has one syllable, and it appears 1.2 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of lass is lasses.

What does lass mean?

noun

  1. 1

    A girl; also (by extension), a young woman.

    Come and dance, ye lads and lasses!

  2. 2

    A female member of the Salvation Army; a hallelujah lass.

  3. 3

    A sweetheart.

  4. 4

    ScotlandA female servant; a maid, a maidservant.

  5. 5

    ScotlandA term of address for a woman, or a female animal.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce lass?

  • US /læs/

Lass has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-lass.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of lass

  • lasses plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is lass?

Lass appears 1.2 times per million words in written English, the 26,092nd most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Lass in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchfillette, jeune fille (girl – see also girl), demoiselle, fille, jeune femme, nana (young woman)
GermanJungfrau, Mädchen (girl – see also girl)
Portuguesegarota, menina, rapariga, senhorita (girl – see also girl)
Spanishniña (girl – see also girl), chica, chiquita, muchacha, señorita (young woman)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does lass come from?

From Middle English las, lasce, lasse (“female infant or child; young woman”), traditionally derived from Old Norse lǫskr (“unmarried”, adjective); see Middle English las for more.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).