Word of the day: lave

From Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day:

The Word of the Day for March 8 is:

lave \LAYV\ verb
1 a : wash, bathe b : to flow along or against
2 : pour

I learned lave years ago while reading Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire (1962). I still think of the novel whenever I see the word (as this post would seem to demonstrate). The word doesn’t appear in the novel, but it’s handy in what narrator Charles Kinbote calls “so-called word golf,” as it lets one make “hate-love in three”: hate, late, lave, love.

Other Pale Fire golf games: “lass-male in four,” “live-dead in five (with ‘lend’ in the middle).”