(Updated to included corrected On This Day)
28 April 2017
lees
[leez]
noun
1. protective shelter:
The lee of the rock gave us some protection against the storm.
2. the side or part that is sheltered or turned away from the wind:
We erected our huts under the lee of the mountain.
3. Chiefly Nautical. the quarter or region toward which the wind blows.
adjective
4. pertaining to, situated in, or moving toward the lee.
Idioms
5. by the lee, Nautical. accidentally against what should be the lee side of a sail:
Careless steering brought the wind by the lee.
6. under the lee, Nautical. to leeward.
Origin of lee(1)
Middle English, Old English
900, before 900; Middle English; Old English hlēo (w) shelter, cognate with Old Frisian hli, hly, Old Saxon hleo, Old Norse hlé
lee(2)
[lee]
noun
1. Usually, lees. the insoluble matter that settles from a liquid, especially from wine; sediment; dregs.
Origin
1350-1400; Middle English lie; Middle French; Medieval Latin lia, probably; Gaulish *lig (j) a; compare Old Irish lige bed, akin to Old English gelege bed. See lie(2)
Dictionary.com
Examples from the Web for lees
Contemporary Examples
She sent at once for lees and a séance was held in the Palace.
How Queen Victoria’s Affection For John Brown Sprang From His Contact With Dead Albert’s Shade
Tom Sykes
June 12, 2013
The lees were the 1st Black Family to move into the predominantly Italian-American Brooklyn Neighborhood of Cobble Hill.
Spike Lee Blasts The New York Times’ Story on Brooklyn Gentrification in Fiery Op-Ed
Marlow Stern
March 30, 2014
The voice phenomenon produced by lees was instantly recognisable as that of the late Consort.
How Queen Victoria’s Affection For John Brown Sprang From His Contact With Dead Albert’s Shade
Tom Sykes
June 12, 2013
Historical Examples
Only a short while; then the thought comes to them in the shape of a dilemma—Miss lees being the first to perceive it.
Gwen Wynn
Mayne Reid
Deuce of a straight line she had taken about Mrs. lees Noel!
The Patrician
John Galsworthy
This year, the entire company of Johnson and lees theatre was engaged for the Marylebone.
The Old Showmen and the Old London Fairs
Thomas Frost
What work would they make with your Shakespears, Otways, and lees ?
Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2
Henry Fielding
When my brother was sick there was nothing to give him to drink but lees that we’d been putting water to for a year.
Germinie Lacerteux
Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
Anagram
else
Today’s quote
Being so closely related to the South, barbecue was part of segregation and helped defeat it.
– Bobby Seale
On this day
28 April 1789 – Mutiny on the ‘Bounty’. Lieutenant Bligh and 18 of his crew from the Royal Navy ship HMS Bounty, are set afloat in an open boat following a mutiny led by Christian Fletcher. After 47 days Bligh landed the boat on Timor, in the Dutch East Indies. The mutineers settled on Pitcairn Island and in Tahiti. In 1856, the British Government granted Norfolk Island to the Pitcairners because population growth had outgrown the small island.
28 April 1926 – birth of Harper Lee, American author. Harper wrote the iconic ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, which detailed the racism that she witnessed as she grew up in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. Died 19 February 2016.
28 April 1945 – Italians execute former dictator Benito Mussolini and his mistress, Clara Petacci.
28 April 1996 – Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania, when Martin Bryant shoots 35 people dead. He is currently serving a life sentence for the murders.