lene

See also: Appendix:Variations of "lene"

English

Etymology

Anglicisation of Latin lēnis. Doublet of lenis.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈliːn/
• Homophone: lean

Noun

lene (plural lenes)

1. (phonetics) The smooth breathing (spiritus lenis).
2. (phonetics) A voiceless, or unaspirated, stopped consonant, such as Greek pi, kappa, or tau.
   • 1861, William Edward Jelf, Accidence:

     When in a crasis, a lene consonant […] is combined with an aspirated vowel, the lene is always changed (except in the Ionic dialect) into the corresponding aspirate […]

Derived terms

• dagesh lene

Anagrams

• Leen, Neel, elne

Dutch

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eːnə

Verb

lene

1. (dated or formal) singular present subjunctive of lenen

Anagrams

• leen

Galician

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin lēnis, in substitution of the inherited form len (attested 13th century) which is preserved in the adverbial phrase ao len (“out in the open”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈlɛne̝/

Adjective

lene m or f (plural lenes)

1. (literary) mild, gentle, soft

   Synonyms: maino, suave

   • c. 1300, R. Martínez López, editor, General Estoria. Versión gallega del siglo XIV, Oviedo: Publicacións de Archivum, page 280:

     Madre, sabes tu que Esau, meu yrmão he veloso et eu nõ, mays som lem, et se meu padre me apalpar et souber que sóóm eu, medo ey que coyde queo quis [excarnesçer], et em lugar de bendiçõ ey medo que me maldiga.

     Mother, you know that Esau, my brother, is hairy, but not me, I'm hairless; and if my father would touch me and find that it's me, I fear that he would think that I was mocking him, and instead of his blessing I would have his curse

References

• “lem” in Xavier Varela Barreiro & Xavier Gómez Guinovart: Corpus Xelmírez - Corpus lingüístico da Galicia medieval. SLI / Grupo TALG / ILG, 2006-2016.
• Antón Luís Santamarina Fernández, editor (2006–2013), “lene”, in Dicionario de Dicionarios da lingua galega [Dictionary of Dictionaries of the Galician language] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Antón Luís Santamarina Fernández, Ernesto Xosé González Seoane, María Álvarez de la Granja, editors (2003–2018), “lene”, in Tesouro informatizado da lingua galega (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Rosario Álvarez Blanco, editor (2014–2024), “lene”, in Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega, →ISSN