leave ...とは 意味・読み方・使い方

語源 1

From 中期英語 leven, from 古期英語 lǣfan (“to leave”), from Proto-West Germanic *laibijan, from Proto-Germanic *laibijaną (“to let stay, leave”), causative of *lībaną (“to stay, remain”), from Proto-Indo-European *leyp- (“to stick; fat”).

Cognate with Old Frisian lēva (“to leave”), dialectal Dutch loven (“to have left over, save, keep”), Old Saxon lēvian, Old High German leiban (“to leave”), Old Norse leifa (“to leave over”) (whence Icelandic leifa (“to leave food uneaten”), Swedish leva (“to leave”)), lifna (“to be left”) (whence Danish levne). More at lave, belive.

The noun is attested since the 19th century, with earliest references to billiards.

動詞

leave (third-person singular simple present leaves, present participle leaving, simple past and past participle left)

1. To have a consequence or remnant.
   1. (transitive) To cause or allow (something) to remain as available; to refrain from taking (something) away; to stop short of consuming or otherwise depleting (something) entirely.

      I left my car at home and took a bus to work.

      The ants did not leave so much as a crumb of bread.

      There's not much food left. We'd better go to the shops.

      • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

        […] St. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London. Close-packed, crushed by the buttressed height of the railway viaduct, rendered airless by huge walls of factories, it at once banished lively interest from a stranger's mind and left only a dull oppression of the spirit.

      • 2013 May-June, David Van Tassel, Lee DeHaan, “Wild Plants to the Rescue”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3:

        Plant breeding is always a numbers game. […]. The wild species we use are rich in genetic variation, […]. In addition, we are looking for rare alleles, so the more plants we try, the better. These rarities may be new mutations, or they can be existing ones that are neutral—or are even selected against—in a wild population. A good example is mutations that disrupt seed dispersal, leaving the seeds on the heads long after they are ripe.

   2. (transitive or intransitive, copulative) To cause, to result in.

      The lightning left her dazzled for several minutes.

      Infantile paralysis left him lame for the rest of his life.

      She left disappointed.

      The accident left the car a heap of twisted metal.

      • 1899, Stephen Crane, chapter 1, in Twelve O'Clock:

        There was some laughter, and Roddle was left free to expand his ideas on the periodic visits of cowboys to the town. “Mason Rickets, he had ten big punkins a-sittin' in front of his store, an' them fellers from the Upside-down-F ranch shot 'em up […].”

      • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXIII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

        The slightest effort made the patient cough. He would stand leaning on a stick and holding a hand to his side, and when the paroxysm had passed it left him shaking.

      • 2013 July 20, “Out of the gloom”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:

        [Rural solar plant] schemes are of little help to industry or other heavy users of electricity. Nor is solar power yet as cheap as the grid. For all that, the rapid arrival of electric light to Indian villages is long overdue. When the national grid suffers its next huge outage, as it did in July 2012 when hundreds of millions were left in the dark, look for specks of light in the villages.

   3. (transitive) To put; to place; to deposit; to deliver, with a sense of withdrawing oneself.

      Leave your hat in the hall.

      We should leave the legal matters to lawyers.

      I left my sewing and went to the window to watch the falling snow.

      • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 5:24:

        Leave there thy gift before the altar and go thy way.

      • c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]:

        The foot / That leaves the print of blood where'er it walks.

2. To depart; to separate from.
   1. (transitive) To let be or do without interference.

      I left him to his reflections.

      I leave my hearers to judge.

      I'll leave it to you to decide.

   2. (transitive) To depart from; to end one's connection or affiliation with.

      His bow and arrow never leaves him.

      I left the country and I left my wife.

      • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

        I was about to say that I had known the Celebrity from the time he wore kilts. But I see I will have to amend that, because he was not a celebrity then, nor, indeed, did he achieve fame until some time after I left New York for the West.

   3. (transitive) To end one's membership in (a group); to terminate one's affiliation with (an organization); to stop participating in (a project).
      • 2018, The Independent, "Brexit: Theresa May 'not bluffing' in threat to leave EU without a deal, Tory minister Liam Fox says"

        If we were to leave, the economic impact on a number of European countries would be severe.

      I left the band.

   4. (euphemistic, transitive) To die (the object denotes those affected by the death).
      • 1982 February 13, Nancy Walker, “Connie”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 29, page 10:

        The other evening Sheri called to tell me that Connie had left us, and that I will never again be able to hold my pot luck supper plate on my knee and listen to Connie's wonderful talk or see her slow, almost impish smile.

   5. (intransitive) To depart; to go away from a certain place or state.

      Synonyms: (U.S., formal) egress, absent, exit, make tracks, set forth; see also Thesaurus:leave

      I think you'd better leave.

3. To transfer something.
   1. (transitive) To transfer possession of after death.

      When my father died, he left me the house.

   2. (transitive) To intentionally place (something) to be received by another; to deliver (something) to a repository; to deposit.

      I'll leave the car in the station so you can pick it up there.

      • 2026 July 16, Nicholas Muhoro, “Inside the 2004 Brianna Maitland Case: One of Vermont’s Most Haunting Mysteries”, in Skip Boring‎, archived from the original on 21 July 2026:

        An hour later, Brianna left a note for her roommate, Jillian Stout, saying she would be back after a work shift.

   3. (transitive) To transfer responsibility or attention of (something) (to someone); to stop being concerned with.

      Can't we just leave this to the experts?

4. (intransitive, obsolete) To remain (behind); to stay.
   • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, “xj”, in Le Morte Darthur, book XVIII:

     And whanne sire launcelot sawe them fare soo / he gat a spere in his hand / and there encountred with hym al attones syr bors sir Ector and sire Lyonel / and alle they thre smote hym atte ones with their speres / […] / and by mysfortune sir bors smote syre launcelot thurgh the shelde in to the syde / and the spere brake / and the hede lefte stylle in his syde

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter II, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, […]. Even such a boat as the Mount Vernon offered a total deck space so cramped as to leave secrecy or privacy well out of the question, even had the motley and democratic assemblage of passengers been disposed to accord either.

5. (transitive, archaic) To stop, desist from; to "leave off" (+ noun / gerund).
   • 1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, Luke:

     When he had leeft speakynge, he sayde vnto Simon: Cary vs into the depe, and lett slippe thy nette to make a draught.

   • c. 1589–1590 (date written), Christopher Marlo[we], edited by Tho[mas] Heywood, The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Iew of Malta. […], London: […] I[ohn] B[eale] for Nicholas Vavasour, […], published 1633, →OCLC, Act I:

     I will learn to leave these fruitless tears …

   • 1716, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, The Basset-Table. An Eclogue.‎:

     Now leave Complaining, and begin your Tea.