Meaning

3 senses
  1. (countable, uncountable)The drift of a ship or aeroplane in a leeward direction.

    Abdrift

    дрейфdrejf

    (of a ship or plane) sideways drift

  2. (countable, uncountable)A varying degree or amount of freedom or flexibility.

    I don't think we have a lot of leeway when it comes to proper formatting.

    Spielraum, Freiraum

    относи́тельная свобо́да де́йствийotnosítelʹnaja svobóda déjstvij

  3. (UK, countable, uncountable)An adverse discrepancy or variation in a cumulative process, usually in the phrase make up leeway.

    Versäumte, Rückstand

Examples

8 sentences
  1. Tom should be given more leeway.

  2. You've been given a lot of leeway so far.

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  3. The ship had too much leeway and drifted off course.

  4. Due to the storm, we were granted leeway in the delivery deadline.

  5. If you give Tom any leeway, he'll probably just walk all over you.

Translations

6 languages
Русский
By meaning 2
drift of a ship or aeroplane in a leeward direction:
degree or amount of freedom or flexibility:
Deutsch
By meaning 3
drift of a ship or aeroplane in a leeward direction:
degree or amount of freedom or flexibility:
adverse discrepancy or variation in a cumulative process:

Origin

From lee (“side away from the wind”) + way.

From lee (“side away from the wind”) + way.

Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Forms

plural: leeways
Singularleeway
Pluralleeways

regular

Synonyms

8 synonyms
Close in meaning

Word family

2 related words
Relatedleeleeward

See also

neighbours in the dictionary
leeway — meaning, examples, forms, synonyms | Krumeto