Lees

//liːz// name, noun

name, noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The sediment that settles during fermentation of beverages, consisting of dead yeast and precipitated parts of the fruit. plural, plural-only

    "Methinks my body is but the lees of my better being."

  2. 2
    plural of lee form-of, plural
  3. 3
    the sediment from fermentation of an alcoholic beverage wordnet
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A surname. countable
  2. 2
    plural of Lee form-of, plural
  3. 3
    A placename:; A village in South Derbyshire district, Derbyshire, England (OS grid ref SK2637). countable, uncountable
  4. 4
    A placename:; A village in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, Greater Manchester, England (OS grid ref SD9504). countable, uncountable

Synonyms

All synonyms
dregsalluvionalluviumashboneschaff

Example

More examples

"Methinks my body is but the lees of my better being."

Etymology

From Old French lies, from Medieval Latin lias (“lees, dregs”) (descent via winemaking common in monasteries), from Gaulish *ligyā, *legyā (“silt, sediment”) (compare Welsh llai, Old Breton leh (“deposit, silt”)), from Proto-Celtic *legyā (“layer”), from Proto-Indo-European *legʰ- (“to lie”).

Related phrases

wind shelter

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.