lay
EnglishEdit
PronunciationEdit
Etymology 1Edit
From Middle English layen, leggen, from Old English leċġan (“to lay”), from Proto-West Germanic *laggjan, from Proto-Germanic *lagjaną (“to lay”), causative form of Proto-Germanic *ligjaną (“to lie, recline”), from Proto-Indo-European *legʰ- (“to lie, recline”).
Cognate with West Frisian lizze (“to lay, to lie”), Dutch leggen (“to lay”), German legen (“to lay”), Norwegian Bokmål legge (“to lay”), Norwegian Nynorsk leggja (“to lay”), Swedish lägga (“to lay”), Icelandic leggja (“to lay”), Albanian lag (“troop, band, war encampment”).
VerbEdit
lay (third-person singular simple present lays, present participle laying, simple past and past participle laid)
- (transitive) To place down in a position of rest, or in a horizontal position.
- to lay a book on the table; to lay a body in the grave
- A shower of rain lays the dust.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, Daniel 6:17:
- A stone was brought, and laid upon the mouth of the den.
- 1735, author unknown, The New-England Primer; as reported by Shapiro, Fred R., The Yale Book of Quotations, Yale University Press, 2006, pages 549–550:
- Now I lay me down to sleep, / I pray the Lord my Soul to keep. / If I should die before I ’wake, / I pray the Lord my Soul to take.
- 1898, Churchill, Winston, chapter 1, in The Celebrity:
- He used to drop into my chambers once in a while to smoke, and was first-rate company. When I gave a dinner there was generally a cover laid for him.
- 1977, Agatha Christie, chapter 4, in An Autobiography, part I, London: Collins, →ISBN:
- An indulgent playmate, Grannie would lay aside the long scratchy-looking letter she was writing (heavily crossed ‘to save notepaper’) and enter into the delightful pastime of ‘a chicken from Mr Whiteley's’.
- (transitive, archaic) To cause to subside or abate.
- Synonyms: becalm, settle down
- 1590, Spenser, Edmund, The Faerie Queene, book II, canto viii, verse xlviii:
- The cloudes, as things affrayd, before him flye; / But all so soone as his outrageous powre / Is layd, they fiercely then begin to shoure […]
- 1662, Salusbury, Sir Thomas, Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two World Systems, Dialogue 2:
- But how upon the winds being laid, doth the ship cease to move?
- 1849, Lord Tennyson, Alfred, In Memoriam A.H.H., canto XCVI:
- He faced the spectres of the mind
And laid them: thus he came at length
To find a stronger faith his own;
And Power was with him in the night,
Which makes the darkness and the light,
And dwells not in the light alone,
But in the darkness and the cloud
- 1895, Chambers, Robert W[illiam], “The Yellow Sign”, in The King in Yellow:
- Tessie lay among the cushions, her face a gray blot in the gloom, but her hands were clasped in mine and I knew that she knew and read my thoughts as I read hers, for we had understood the mystery of the Hyades and the Phantom of Truth was laid.
- (transitive) To prepare (a plan, project etc.); to set out, establish (a law, principle).
- 2006, James, Clive, North Face of Soho, Picador, published 2007, page 48:
- Even when I lay a long plan, it is never in the expectation that I will live to see it fulfilled.
- (transitive) To install certain building materials, laying one thing on top of another.
- lay brick; lay flooring
- (transitive) To produce and deposit an egg.
- the hen laid an egg
- Did dinosaurs lay their eggs in a nest?
- (transitive) To bet (that something is or is not the case).
- I'll lay that he doesn't turn up on Monday.
- (transitive) To deposit (a stake) as a wager; to stake; to risk.
- c. 1610–1611, William Shakespeare, “The VVinters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act II, scene i]:
- I dare lay mine honour / He will remain so.
- (transitive, slang) To have sex with.
- Synonyms: lie by, lie with, sleep with; see also Thesaurus:copulate with
- 1944, Chandler, Raymond, The Lady in the Lake, Penguin, published 2011, page 11:
- ‘It's because he's a no-good son of a bitch who thinks it is smart to lay his friends' wives and brag about it.’
- (nautical) To take a position; to come or go.
- to lay forward; to lay aloft
- (law) To state; to allege.
- to lay the venue
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Bouvier to this entry?)
- (military) To point; to aim.
- to lay a gun
- (ropemaking) To put the strands of (a rope, a cable, etc.) in their proper places and twist or unite them.
- to lay a cable or rope
- (printing) To place and arrange (pages) for a form upon the imposing stone.
- (printing) To place (new type) properly in the cases.
- To apply; to put.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, Proverbs 31:19:
- She layeth her hands to the spindle.
- To impose (a burden, punishment, command, tax, etc.).
- to lay a tax on land
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, Isaiah 53:6:
- The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
- To impute; to charge; to allege.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, Job 24:12:
- God layeth not folly to them.
- c. 1608–1609, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act II, scene iii]:
- Lay the fault on us.
- To present or offer.
- to lay an indictment in a particular county; to lay a scheme before one
ConjugationEdit
infinitive | lay | ||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
present participle | laying | ||||||||||
past participle | laid | ||||||||||
simple | progressive | perfect | perfect progressive | ||||||||
present | I lay | we lay | I am laying | we are laying | I have laid | we have laid | I have been laying | we have been laying | |||
you lay | you lay | you are laying | you are laying | you have laid | you have laid | you have been laying | you have been laying | ||||
he lays | they lay | he is laying | they are laying | he has laid | they have laid | he has been laying | they have been laying | ||||
past | I laid | we laid | I was laying | we were laying | I had laid | we had laid | I had been laying | we had been laying | |||
you laid | you laid | you were laying | you were laying | you had laid | you had laid | you had been laying | you had been laying | ||||
he laid | they laid | he was laying | they were laying | he had laid | they had laid | he had been laying | they had been laying | ||||
future | I will lay | we will lay | I will be laying | we will be laying | I will have laid | we will have laid | I will have been laying | we will have been laying | |||
you will lay | you will lay | you will be laying | you will be laying | you will have laid | you will have laid | you will have been laying | you will have been laying | ||||
he will lay | they will lay | he will be laying | they will be laying | he will have laid | they will have laid | he will have been laying | they will have been laying | ||||
conditional | I would lay | we would lay | I would be laying | we would be laying | I would have laid | we would have laid | I would have been laying | we would have been laying | |||
you would lay | you would lay | you would be laying | you would be laying | you would have laid | you would have laid | you would have been laying | you would have been laying | ||||
he would lay | they would lay | he would be laying | they would be laying | he would have laid | they would have laid | he would have been laying | they would have been laying | ||||
imperative | lay |
Usage notesEdit
The verb lay is sometimes used interchangeably with the corresponding intransitive verb lie in informal spoken settings. This can lead to nonstandard constructions which are sometimes objected to. This usage is common in speech but rarely found in edited writing or in more formal spoken situations.
Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for lay in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)
Derived termsEdit
- allay
- belay
- forelay
- get laid
- lay about
- lay a finger on
- lay a foundation
- lay an egg
- lay away
- lay bare
- lay-by/lay by
- lay claim
- lay down
- lay hands on
- lay-in
- laying on of hands
- lay into
- lay low
- layoff
- lay on the line
- lay on the table
- lay out
- lay siege
- lay the groundwork
- lay to rest
- lay up
- lay waste
- offlay
- overlay
- well-laid
TranslationsEdit
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ReferencesEdit
- “lay” in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989, →ISBN.
NounEdit
lay (countable and uncountable, plural lays)
- Arrangement or relationship; layout.
- the lay of the land
- A share of the profits in a business.
- 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, chapter 16
- I was already aware that in the whaling business they paid no wages; but all hands, including the captain, received certain shares of the profits called lays, and that these lays were proportioned to the degree of importance pertaining to the respective duties of the ship’s company.
- 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, chapter 16
- A lyrical, narrative poem written in octosyllabic couplets that often deals with tales of adventure and romance.
- 1945: "The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun" by JRR Tolkien
- Sad is the note and sad the lay,
but mirth we meet not every day.
- Sad is the note and sad the lay,
- 1945: "The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun" by JRR Tolkien
- The direction a rope is twisted.
- Worm and parcel with the lay; turn and serve the other way.
- (colloquial) A casual sexual partner.
- 1996, JoAnn Ross, Southern Comforts, MIRA (1996), →ISBN, page 166:
- Over the years she'd tried to tell himself that his uptown girl was just another lay.
- 2000, R. J. Kaiser, Fruitcake, MIRA (2000), →ISBN, page 288:
- To find a place like that and be discreet about it, Jones figured he needed help, so he went to see his favorite lay, Juan Carillo's woman, Carmen.
- 2011, Kelly Meding, Trance, Pocket Books (2011), →ISBN, pages 205-206:
- “Because I don't want William to be just another lay. I did the slut thing, T, and it got me into a lot of trouble years ago. […]
- What was I, just another lay you can toss aside as you go on to your next conquest?
- 1996, JoAnn Ross, Southern Comforts, MIRA (1996), →ISBN, page 166:
- (colloquial) An act of sexual intercourse.
- 1993, David Halberstam, The Fifties, Open Road Integrated Media (2012), →ISBN, unnumbered page:
- Listening to this dismissal of his work, [Tennessee] Williams thought to himself of Wilder, “This character has never had a good lay.”
- 2009, Fern Michaels, The Scoop, Kensington Books (2009), →ISBN, pages 212-213:
- […] She didn't become this germ freak until Thomas died. I wonder if she just needs a good lay, you know, an all-nighter?" Toots said thoughtfully.
- 2011, Pamela Yaye, Promises We Make, Kimani Press (2011), →ISBN, unnumbered page:
- “What she needs is a good lay. If she had someone to rock her world on a regular basis, she wouldn't be such a raging bit—”
- 1993, David Halberstam, The Fifties, Open Road Integrated Media (2012), →ISBN, unnumbered page:
- (slang, archaic) A plan; a scheme.
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Charles Dickens to this entry?)
- (uncountable) the laying of eggs.
- The hens are off the lay at present.
- (obsolete) A layer.
- 1677, Hannah Woolley, The Compleat Servant-Maid, London: T. Passinger, p. 5,[1]
- […] lay in the bottom of an earthen pot some dried vine leaves, and so make a lay of Pears, and leaves till the pot is filled up, laying betwixt each lay some sliced Ginger […]
- 1718, Joseph Addison, Remarks on Several Parts of Italy, &c. in the Years 1701, 1702, 1703, London: J. Tonson, “Sienna, Leghorne, Pisa,” p. 300,[2]
- […] the whole Body of the Church is chequer’d with different Lays of White and Black Marble […]
- 1724, Thomas Spooner, A Compendious Treatise of the Diseases of the Skin, London, Chapter 2, p. 20,[3]
- […] when we examine the Scarf-Skin with a Microscope, it appears to be made up of several Lays of exceeding small Scales, which cover one another more or less […]
- 1766, Thomas Amory, The Life of John Buncle, Esq., London: J. Johnson and B. Davenport, Volume 2, Section 1, p. 16, footnote 1,[4]
- […] in one particular it exceeds the fen birds, for it has two tastes; it being brown and white meat: under a lay of brown is a lay of white meat […]
- 1677, Hannah Woolley, The Compleat Servant-Maid, London: T. Passinger, p. 5,[1]
SynonymsEdit
- (casual sexual partner): see also Thesaurus:casual sexual partner.
Derived termsEdit
TranslationsEdit
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Etymology 2Edit
From Middle English laie, lawe, from Old English lagu (“sea, flood, water, ocean”), from Proto-West Germanic *lagu (“water, sea”), from Proto-Germanic *laguz (“water, sea”), from Proto-Indo-European *lakw- (“water, body of water, lake”). Cognate with Icelandic lögur (“liquid, fluid, lake”), Latin lacus (“lake, hollow, hole”).
NounEdit
lay (plural lays)
- A lake.
Etymology 3Edit
From Old French lai, from Latin laicus, from Ancient Greek λαϊκός (laïkós). Doublet of laic.
AdjectiveEdit
lay (comparative more lay, superlative most lay)
- Not belonging to the clergy, but associated with them.
- They seemed more lay than clerical.
- a lay preacher; a lay brother
- Non-professional; not being a member of an organized institution.
- 1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter VII:
- He hasn't caught a mouse since he was a slip of a kitten. Except when eating, he does nothing but sleep. [...] It's a sort of disease. There's a scientific name for it. Trau- something. Traumatic symplegia, that's it. This cat has traumatic symplegia. In other words, putting it in simple language adapted to the lay mind, where other cats are content to get their eight hours, Augustus wants his twenty-four.
- (card games) Not trumps.
- a lay suit
- (obsolete) Not educated or cultivated; ignorant.
Related termsEdit
TranslationsEdit
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Etymology 4Edit
See lie.
VerbEdit
lay
- simple past tense of lie when pertaining to position.
- The baby lay in its crib and slept silently.
- (proscribed) To be in a horizontal position; to lie (from confusion with lie).
- 1969 July, Bob Dylan, “Lay Lady Lay”, Nashville Skyline, Columbia:
- Lay, lady, lay. / Lay across my big brass bed.
- 1974, John Denver, “Annie’s Song”, Back Home Again, RCA:
- Let me lay down beside you. / Let me always be with you.
- 1969 July, Bob Dylan, “Lay Lady Lay”, Nashville Skyline, Columbia:
Derived termsEdit
Etymology 5Edit
From Middle English lay, from Old French lai (“song, lyric, poem”), from Frankish *laih (“play, melody, song”), from Proto-Germanic *laikaz, *laikiz (“jump, play, dance, hymn”), from Proto-Indo-European *loyg-, *layǵ- (“to jump, spring, play”). Akin to Old High German leih (“a play, skit, melody, song”), Middle High German leich (“piece of music, epic song played on a harp”), Old English lācan (“to move quickly, fence, sing”). See lake.
NounEdit
lay (plural lays)
- A ballad or sung poem; a short poem or narrative, usually intended to be sung.
- 1742, Edward Young, The Complaint: or Night-Thoughts on Life, Death & Immortality, Night I
- I strive, with wakeful melody, to cheer
- The sullen gloom, sweet Philomel! like thee,
- And call the stars to listen: every star
- Is deaf to mine, enamour’d of thy lay.
- 1805 The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Sir Walter Scott.
- 1742, Edward Young, The Complaint: or Night-Thoughts on Life, Death & Immortality, Night I
TranslationsEdit
Etymology 6Edit
See lea
NounEdit
lay (plural lays)
- (obsolete) A meadow; a lea.
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Dryden to this entry?)
Etymology 7Edit
NounEdit
lay (plural lays)
- (obsolete) A law.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Qveene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for VVilliam Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938, book II, canto X, stanza 42:
- A woman worthy of immortall prayse, / Which for this Realme found many goodly layes
- (obsolete) An obligation; a vow.
- 1601, Philemon Holland, The Historie of the World, commonly called the Naturall Historie (originally by Pliny the Elder)
- they bound themselues by a sacred lay and oth to fight it out to the last man
- 1601, Philemon Holland, The Historie of the World, commonly called the Naturall Historie (originally by Pliny the Elder)
Etymology 8Edit
Calque of Yiddish לייגן (leygn, “to put, lay”).
VerbEdit
lay (third-person singular simple present lays, present participle laying, simple past and past participle laid)
- (Judaism, transitive) To don or put on (tefillin (phylacteries)).
AnagramsEdit
AnguthimriEdit
VerbEdit
lay
- (transitive, Mpakwithi) to carry
ReferencesEdit
- Terry Crowley, The Mpakwithi dialect of Anguthimri (1981), page 186
Haitian CreoleEdit
EtymologyEdit
From French l'ail (“the garlic”)
NounEdit
lay
LashiEdit
PronunciationEdit
PostpositionEdit
lay
VerbEdit
lay
- to pass
ReferencesEdit
- Hkaw Luk (2017) A grammatical sketch of Lacid[5], Chiang Mai: Payap University (master thesis)
MalagasyEdit
EtymologyEdit
From Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *layaʀ, from Proto-Austronesian *layaʀ.
NounEdit
lay
ReferencesEdit
- lay in Malagasy dictionaries at malagasyword.org
Mauritian CreoleEdit
Etymology 1Edit
NounEdit
lay
Etymology 2Edit
NounEdit
lay
ReferencesEdit
- Baker, Philip & Hookoomsing, Vinesh Y. 1987. Dictionnaire de créole mauricien. Morisyen – English – Français
Middle EnglishEdit
VerbEdit
lay
Seychellois CreoleEdit
Etymology 1Edit
NounEdit
lay
Etymology 2Edit
NounEdit
lay
ReferencesEdit
- Danielle D’Offay et Guy Lionnet, Diksyonner Kreol - Franse / Dictionnaire Créole Seychellois - Français
VietnameseEdit
PronunciationEdit
VerbEdit
lay
- to shake