lace

noun

1. (uncountable)A light fabric containing patterns of holes, usually built up from a single thread.

   “c. 1620, Francis Bacon, letter of advice to Sir George Villiers Our English dames are much given to the wearing of very fine and costly laces.”

   “She was a fat, round little woman, richly apparelled in velvet and lace, […]; and the way she laughed, cackling like a hen, the way she talked to the waiters and the maid,[…]—all these unexpected phenomena impelled one to hysterical mirth, and made one class her with such immortally ludicrous types as Ally Sloper, the Widow Twankey, or Miss Moucher.”

   “Mind you, clothes were clothes in those days. […] Frills, ruffles, flounces, lace, complicated seams and gores: not only did they sweep the ground and have to be held up in one hand elegantly as you walked along, but they had little capes or coats or feather boas.”

2. (countable)A cord or ribbon passed through eyelets in a shoe or garment, pulled tight and tied to fasten the shoe or garment firmly.

   “your laces are untied, do them up!”

3. (countable, uncountable)A snare or gin, especially one made of interwoven cords; a net.

   “The king had ſnared been in loues ſtrong lace, [...]”

4. (countable, obsolete, slang, uncountable)Spirits added to coffee or another beverage.

   “He is forced every Morning to drink his Dish of Coffee by itself, without the Addition of the Spectator, that used to be better than Lace to it.”

verb

1. (ergative)To fasten (something) with laces.

   “When Jenny's stays are newly laced.”

2. (transitive)To interweave items.

   “to lace one's fingers together”

   “Now we plunged into a deep shade with the boughs lacing each other overhead, and crossed dainty, rustic bridges over the cold trout-streams, the boards giving back the clatter of our horses' feet: or anon we shot into a clearing, with a colored glimpse of the lake and its curving shore far below us.”

   “The Gond […] picked up a trail of the Karela, the vine that bears the bitter wild gourd, and laced it to and fro across the temple door.”

   “Flanner's old-fashioned, staunch feminism runs throughout and laces together these letters.”

3. (transitive)To interweave the spokes of a bicycle wheel.

   “For these and other reasons, you may want to lace a new rim onto an existing hub, or vice versa. For some reason, probably because of the maze and complex angles of spokes, lacing and building a wheel has for years been a virtual mystery to even skilled home bike mechanics.”

4. (transitive)To beat; to lash; to make stripes on.

   “I'll Lace your Coat for ye.”

5. (transitive)To adorn with narrow strips or braids of some decorative material.

   “cloth laced with silver”

   “Under these windows, white and azure-laced”

6. (figuratively, transitive)To intersperse or diversify with something.

   “The throne speech opening the New Democrat government’s second legislative session Dec. 2 was a modest document featuring caution and pragmatism laced with a few tidbits of democratic socialism.”

7. (transitive)To add alcohol, poison, a drug or anything else potentially harmful to (food or drink).
8. (transitive)To cover intricately with bands, strips, or the like, so as to resemble lace.

   “The world we lived in was wide, and most of it was open to us with little trouble. Roads, railways, and shipping lines laced it, ready to carry one thousands of miles safely and in comfort.”