Other forms: lopes, loping
To lope is to run with long easy strides. Lope across the field, loping along, a loping stride.
It says the running is unhurried and covers ground, which is why wolves and long-legged people get it. It is a gait between a trot and a gallop in horses. The word came from Old Norse and is a cousin of leap.
1verblopeTo run with long easy strides.
“The wolf loped across the snowy field without seeming to hurry.”
lope is a way of running.
Middle English lopen comes from Old Norse hlaupa, to leap. Leap and the German laufen are relatives.
Old Norse
hlaupa — to leap, jump
Middle English
lopen
English, today
lope
From Middle English lopen, from Old Norse hlaupa (“to leap, jump”). See leap. Cognate with German laufen (“walk, run”), Danish løbe (“run”), Dutch lopen (“walk, run”), Norwegian løpe (“run”). a doublet of leap.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA