leasing means A lie; the act of lying, falsehood. It carries an Arena rating of 1582, earned across 7 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, leasing ranks #1,925 of 12,334 for The Improbable, #2,573 of 12,553 for Scariest Words, #4,166 of 12,567 for Funniest Words, #5,169 of 12,319 for Most Sublime Words.
leasing is pronounced /ˈliːzɪŋ/.
Why “leasing” is a great word
The act of lying or telling falsehoods; a lie. From Middle English lesing, leasung, from Old English lēasung ("leasing, lying, false witness, deceit"), from Proto-West Germanic *lausungu, from Proto-Germanic *lausungō, equivalent to lease ("to lie") + -ing. Unlike a "fib," which is a trivial, often kindly untruth, or "perjury," a precise legal crime, leasing is the grave, archaic name for the act of deception in its raw form. It is the cold fabrication whispered in a shadowed hall, the broken vow that rusts like abandoned armor, and the hollow echo where a promised truth should be—a testament to language's oldest and most corrosive power, treating falsehood not as a slip of the tongue, but as a moral architecture of emptiness.
Etymology
From Middle English lesing, leasung, from Old English lēasung (“leasing, lying, false witness, deceit, hypocrisy, artifice, lie, empty talk, frivolity, laxity”), from Proto-West Germanic *lausungu, from Proto-Germanic *lausungō, equivalent to lease (“to lie”) + -ing. Cognate with Scots lesing (“lying, falsehood”), German Lösung (“breaking away, release, liberation, solution”), Icelandic lausung (“lying, falsehood”).
noun
- A lie; the act of lying, falsehood.“fy on þi lawe / For al by lesynges þow lyuest · and lecherouse werkes.”