• IPA: /leɪv/

lave (laves, present participle laving; past and past participle laved)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To pour or throw out, as water; lade out; bail; bail out.
2. (transitive) To draw, as water; drink in.
   • 2006, Cormac McCarthy, The Road, London: Picador, 2007, p. 38.

     The boy walked out and squatted and laved up the dark water.

3. (transitive) To give bountifully; lavish.
4. (intransitive) To run down or gutter, as a candle.
5. (intransitive, dialectal) To hang or flap down.
6. (ambitransitive, archaic) To wash.
   • 1713, Alexander Pope, Windsor Forest:

     In her chaste current oft the goddess laves.

   • 1789, William Lisle Bowles, 'Sonnet I' from Fourteen Sonnets, 1789.

     the tranquil tide, / That laves the pebbled shore.

• lather
• launder
• laundry
• lavender
• lavish
• lavy
• lye

lave (uncountable)

1. (archaic or dialectal) The remainder, rest; that which is left, remnant; others.
   • 1885, Sir Richard Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Night 12.

     Then they set upon us and slew some of my slaves and put the lave to flight.

   • 1896 (posthumously), Robert Louis Stevenson, Songs of Travel and other verses.

     Give to me the life I love, / Let the lave go by me...

2. (dialectal) A crowd
   • 1807, Ancient historic ballads - Page 72:

     Of prelates proud, a populous lave, And abbots boldly there were known.

• (that which is left) remnant, residue; See also Thesaurus:remainder