lay down
English edit
Etymology edit
From Middle English leyen doun, leien doun (“to lay down”), equivalent to lay + down.
Pronunciation edit
Audio (UK) (file)
Verb edit
lay down (third-person singular simple present lays down, present participle laying down, simple past and past participle laid down)
- (transitive) To give up, surrender, or yield (e.g. a weapon), usually by placing it on the ground.
- The police urged the gunman to lay down his weapon.
- Lay down your arms.
- To place on the ground, e.g. a railway on a trackbed.
- 1951 April, D. S. Barrie, “British Railways: A Survey, 1948-1950”, in Railway Magazine, number 600, page 225:
- Two standard types of flat-bottom track were introduced as early as 1949, and some 1,570 miles had been laid down to the end of 1950.
- 2021 December 29, Stephen Roberts, “Stories and facts behind railway plaques: Chester (1848)”, in RAIL, number 947, page 57:
- He also thought nothing of laying down a railway in a war zone. For example, he was one of those behind the Grand Crimean Central Railway, built during the Crimean War [...].
- (transitive) To intentionally take a fall while riding a motorcycle, in order to prevent a more serious collision.
- He laid down his brand-new Harley-Davidson to avoid the oncoming bus.
- (transitive) To specify, institute, enact, assert firmly, state authoritatively, establish or formulate (rules or policies).
- Let's lay down the rules right at the beginning, so we are consistent.
- You've got to lay down the law with that boy.
- 1893, William Morris, The Ideal Book:
- Well, I lay it down, first, that a book quite unornamented can look actually and positively beautiful, and not merely un-ugly, if it be, so to say, architecturally good, which, by the by, need not add much to its price […]
- 1963 February, “Diesel locomotive faults and their remedies”, in Modern Railways, page 103:
- Many of the faults reported in all categories should have been cleared by systematic fault-finding. Once a system of fault-finding has been laid down, staff must be made familiar with it and must follow the correct sequence of diagnosis step by step in the way set out in a fault-finding chart.
- 2016 February 20, “Obituary: Antonin Scalia: Always right”, in The Economist:
- The law was written in words, and those ideally laid down bright lines for everyone to follow
- To stock, store (e.g. wine) for the future. See also lay by.
- (euphemistic, transitive) To euthanize an animal.
- To sacrifice, especially in the phrase "to lay down one's life."
- (intransitive, nonstandard, proscribed) To lie down; to place oneself in a reclined or horizontal position, on a bed or similar, for the purpose of resting.
- I feel a bit ill, so I'm going to go lay down for a while.
- (nautical, dated) To draw the lines of a ship's hull at full size, before starting a build.
Derived terms edit
Translations edit
to surrender or yield (a weapon) by placing it on the ground
to specify or establish (rules)
to lie down for rest
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