Definition of "lariat" []

• See lasso. (noun)
• A rope for picketing grazing horses or mules. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Our word lariat comes from this Mexican word with the definite article prefixed and the final vowel dropped."
• "I just know that its supposed to be called a lariat, not lasso."
• "The Indians had copied saddles, stirrups, the crupper, and the lariat from the Spanish explorers, who, in turn had borrowed these innovations from the Moors Arabic people from North Africa, who had previously occupied Spain for 500 years."