lanyard

plural lanyards · alternative laniard

1. nauticalA short rope used for fastening rigging, as a handle, etc.

   "Take ahold here, an' keep ringin' steady," said Dan, passing Harvey the lanyard of a bell that hung just behind the windlass.

   1896 November – 1897 May, Rudyard Kipling, chapter III, in “Captains Courageous”, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, published 1897, →OCLC, pages 101–102

2. broadlyA cord worn around the neck, shoulder, or wrist which is attached to a small object to be carried such as an identity card or security pass, key, knife, or whistle.

   Aboard ship he carried his crutch by a lanyard round his neck, to have both hands as free as possible. [...] [H]e would hand himself from one place to another, now using the crutch, now trailing it alongside by the lanyard, as quickly as another man could walk.

   1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Voyage”, in Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC, part II (The Sea Cook), pages 79–80

3. A craft activity done by intricately braiding thin colored plastic lines to make patterns, or the product of such a craft.

   It's lanyard. It's a camp tradition. You'll have about a million lanyard key chains by the time the summer is over.

   2006 07, Melissa J. Morgan, Natalie's Secret, ABDO, →ISBN, page 48

   1 more example

   A few lousy days at Camp Minnehaha spent extracting oar splinters from your palms and taking group lanyard lessons under the full noonday sun.

   2008, Natalie Angier, The Canon, page 58

4. broadlygovernmentA cord with a hook which is secured to an artillery piece, and pulled to fire the weapon.
5. UKderogatorygovernmentA civil servant or mid-level bureaucrat, viewed as officious and overly concerned with social justice.

   DEI has allowed them to virtue signal and bolster their own positions simultaneously. Win-win for the lanyards.

   2026 August 10, Andrew Neil (@afneil), Twitter

   2 more examples

   Completely agree. Nowhere more so than in Scotlsnd^([sic]), where the lanyards are making a mockery of how a parliament should work.

   2025 May 11, KH (@kh_99), Twitter

   How even places devoted to truth and free inquiry slowly surrender to managerialist mediocrity and how, without anyone ever declaring victory, the lanyards win.

   2026 July 3, Annabel Denham, “Has Britain's only free-thinking university been captured by the lanyard class?”, in The Telegraph