Lasso

Lasso, also known as lariat, is a rope tool used by cowboys, ranchers, and rodeo competitors to catch livestock from a distance. It consists of a long, flexible rope with a loop at one end that slides along the rope as it is thrown; when the loop closes around an animal, movement tightens the knot. The term derives from the Spanish lazo, meaning noose.

Traditional lassos are made from natural fibers such as Manila hemp, but modern examples frequently use synthetic materials like nylon or polyester. The loop is designed to slide freely when thrown, then tighten under tension. Ropers practice throwing, controlling the rope, and guiding the animal by weight and momentum. Safety training emphasizes proper technique, equipment inspection, and avoiding hazards to people and animals.

LASSO also refers to the statistical method Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator. Introduced by Robert Tibshirani in 1996, LASSO is a regression technique that adds an L1 penalty to the ordinary least squares objective. This penalty encourages sparsity in the estimated coefficients, effectively selecting a subset of variables. LASSO is widely used in high-dimensional data analysis and machine learning for feature selection and regularization.