Definition of "lope"

And as we waited in the car Victor got out and loped over to the house and said a few words to an old lady, […]

1957, Jack Kerouac, chapter 5, in On the Road, Viking Press, part 5

“And the holidays?” Murgo proposed one evening as they loped down a bridlepath past lovers fondling in the grass. “Fun, are they? High living?”

1986, John le Carré, A Perfect Spy

And as he cam by a ryver, in hys woodnes he wolde have made hys horse to have lopyn over the watir; and the horse fayled footyng and felle in the ryver(please add an English translation of this quotation)

1470–1485 (date produced), Thomas Malory, “Capitulum xxxv”, in [Le Morte Darthur], book IX, [London: […] by William Caxton], published 31 July 1485; republished as H[einrich] Oskar Sommer, editor, Le Morte Darthur […], London: David Nutt, […], 1889,

he that lopes on the ropes

1621-22, Thomas Middleton et al, The Spanish Gypsy

Hares have larger, leaner bodies, longer legs, and longer ears than the true rabbit. They also run with a lope instead of a hop. It is thought that they developed this more stream-lined body and swifter gait from running on the plains […]

1931, Home Geographic Monthly, volumes 1-2, page 45