Definition of "lanyard"

"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, pages 101–102

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, part II (The Sea Cook), pages 79–80

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, page 48

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