Middle English Dictionary Entry

forlẹ̄sen v.
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Entry Info

Definitions (Senses and Subsenses)

Note: Cp. forlosen.
1a.
To forfeit (something), to be deprived of (something) as a punishment.
1b.
(a) To lose (something) completely or irrevocably, to lose disastrously; (b) to lose (an ability, a condition, a power, a quality, one's nature, etc.); also, to be freed of (an undesirable condition or quality).
1c.
(a) To waste (something); to do (something) in vain; ~ (one's) whil, to waste (one's) time; ~ swink or travail, to waste (one's) efforts, to have (one's) labor for nothing; (b) to fail to do (something); (c) to be beaten (at a game, in battle); (d) to lose sight of (something), to miss (the trail of an animal); (e) ~ stirrup, to get one's foot out of the stirrup while riding.
2.
(a) To desert or abandon (someone); (b) to disregard or repudiate (the law, an oath), to give up or renounce (something); (c) to leave (a place), depart from (a person), be separated from (something); ~ lif, to depart from life, to die.
3.
(a) To damn (someone); to be damned, suffer damnation; ppl. as noun: forlorene, lost souls, the damned; (b) to ruin, disgrace, or dishonor (someone); to debauch (a woman); (c) to make perish, doom to destruction, destroy; ben forloren, to be doomed or lost, to perish; (d) to ruin or destroy (something); to spoil (grain), wreck (a ship), cripple (a limb), etc.; to perish, to be destroyed.