Other forms: lassos
A lasso is a rope with a running noose for catching animals. Throw a lasso, swing the lasso, catch it with a lasso.
The loop is kept open by the stiffness of the rope and by the honda, the small eye the rope runs through, and the swing above the head is to keep it open rather than to build speed. The word came from Spanish and is the same word as lace.
1nounlassoA rope with a running noose for catching animals.
“The cowboy threw his lasso over the calf's head.”
lasso is a rope.
Spanish lazo comes from Latin laqueus, a noose or snare. Lace is the same word by another road.
Latin
laqueus
Vulgar Latin
*laceum
Spanish
lazo
English, today
lasso
From Spanish lazo, from Vulgar Latin laceum, from Latin laqueus. a doublet of lace.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA