lay

See also: Lay, láy, lấy, lẫy, and laþ

English

Pronunciation
  • enPR: lā, IPA(key): /leɪ/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Rhymes: -eɪ
  • Homophones: lei, ley, le

Etymology 1

From Middle English leyen, 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”).

Verb

lay (third-person singular simple present lays, present participle laying, simple past and past participle laid)

  1. (transitive)
    1. 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, 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 Fred R. Shapiro, 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.
      • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC, page 2:
        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’.
    2. (archaic) To cause to subside or abate.
      Synonyms: becalm, settle down
      • 1590, Edmund Spenser, 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, Sir Thomas Salusbury, Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two World Systems, Dialogue 2:
        But how upon the winds being laid, doth the ship cease to move?
      • 1849, Alfred Lord Tennyson, 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, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, “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.
    3. To prepare (a plan, project etc.); to set out, establish (a law, principle).
      • 2006, Clive James, 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.
    4. To install certain building materials, laying one thing on top of another.
      lay brick; lay flooring
    5. To produce and deposit an egg.
      the hen laid an egg
      Did dinosaurs lay their eggs in a nest?
    6. To bet (that something is or is not the case).
      I'll lay that he doesn't turn up on Monday.
    7. To deposit (a stake) as a wager; to stake; to risk.
      • c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:
        I dare lay mine honour / He will remain so.
      • 1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide:
        He laid a hundred guineas with the laird of Slofferfield that he would drive four horses through the Slofferfield loch, and in the prank he had his bit chariot dung to pieces and a good mare killed.
    8. (slang) To have sex with.
      to get laid
      Synonyms: lie by, lie with, sleep with; see also Thesaurus:copulate with
      • 1944, Raymond Chandler, 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.'
    9. (law) To state; to allege.[1]
      to lay the venue
    10. (military) To point; to aim.
      to lay a gun
    11. (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
    12. (printing) To place and arrange (pages) for a form upon the imposing stone.
    13. (printing) To place (new type) properly in the cases.
    14. To apply; to put.
      The news article laid emphasis on the unusually young age of the criminals.
    15. To impose (a burden, punishment, command, tax, etc.).
      to lay a tax on land
    16. To impute; to charge; to allege.
      Synonyms: ascribe, attribute
    17. To present or offer.
      to lay an indictment in a particular county
      I have laid the facts of the matter before you.
  2. (intransitive)
    1. (nautical) To take a position; to come or go.
      to lay forward;  to lay aloft
    2. (proscribed, see usage notes) To lie: to rest in a horizontal position on a surface.
      I found him laying on the floor.
      • 1814 July, [Jane Austen], chapter VII, in Mansfield Park: […], volume III, London: […] T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 151:
        If ever there was a perfect beauty afloat, she is one; and there she lays at Spithead, and anybody in England would take her for an eight-and-twenty. I was upon the platform two hours this afternoon, looking at her. She lays just astern of the Endymion, with the Cleopatra to larboard.
      • 1969 July, Bob Dylan, “Lay Lady Lay”, in 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.
Usage notes
  • The transitive verb lay is often used instead of the corresponding intransitive verb lie, especially in informal settings (and not only in speaking). This happens with all their forms: the present tense and base (infinitive) forms lay(s) are used instead of the present tense and base forms lie(s), and the simple past and past participle of lay (both laid) are used instead of the corresponding forms of lie (lay and lain).
  • This intransitive use of the forms of lay instead of the forms of lie already started in Middle English, first appearing in the thirteenth century and becoming common in the fifteenth century. The usage was still chiefly limited to the present tense, and it seems that it was influenced by reflexive or passive use of lay (the wounded lay themselves / are laid on the beds).[2]
  • Several factors contributed to the increased use of all forms of lay for those of lie. One is that the form lay was also originally used as both the base form of lay and as the simple past of lie. Another is the use of lay as a reflexive verb meaning “to go lie (down)”. A third one is avoidance of the homonymy with lie “to tell a lie”. In addition, the verb lay looks more complicated than it actually is: it is in fact a regular verb that only looks irregular due to the spelling convention of using laid instead of layed. A similar merger exists in some other Germanic languages, and the two verbs have merged completely in Afrikaans lê (“to lie; to lay”). In German, however, there is no confusion at all even in informal speech: legen, legte, gelegt ("lay, laid, laid") versus liegen, lag, gelegen ("lie, lay, lain") due to the clear differences between the regular forms of the transitive verb and the "irregular" (strong) forms of the intransitive verb.
  • Traditional grammars, schoolbooks, and style guides object to the common intransitive use of lay, and a certain stigma remains against the practice. Consequently the usage is only rarely found in carefully edited writing or in more formal spoken situations but common in speech and journalism, especially since the arrival of the Internet and the increasingly rare use of professional copyediting (in other words, journalists check their own writing).
  • Nautical use of lay as an intransitive verb is regarded as standard.[2]
To lay and to lie — a comparison of verb forms
Term Definition Present participle Simple past Past participle Transitivity Examples (present/simple past) Example (past participle)
lay
  • To put, to place.
 laying laid laid Transitive He lays/laid the book down. He had laid the book down.
The book was laid down by him.
lie
  • To be placed horizontally.
  • To be placed or situated.
 lying lay lain Intransitive
(or reflexive)		 She lies/lay down.
(She lies/lay herself down.)		 She had lain down.
(She had lain herself down.)
lie
  • To distort the truth.
 lying lied lied Intransitive He lies/lied to his mother. He had lied to his mother.
Conjugation
Conjugation of lay
infinitive (to) lay
present tense past tense
1st-person singular lay laid
2nd-person singular lay, layest† laid, laidst†, laidest†
3rd-person singular lays, layeth† laid
plural lay
subjunctive lay laid
imperative lay —
participles laying laid

†Archaic or obsolete.

Derived terms
Translations

Noun

lay (countable and uncountable, plural lays)

  1. Arrangement or relationship; layout.
    • 1977 August 20, Jim Marko, “Building A Gay Culture—An Evening of Poetry and Theatre”, in Gay Community News, volume 5, number 7, page 16:
      He spoke of a flower or tree in each of the fifteen poems. A simple shape, a color, the design of a hedge, the lay of a limb inspired him in these songs to and about his loves.
    the lay of the land
  2. A share of the profits in a business.
    • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 16”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:
      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.
  3. The direction a rope is twisted.
    Worm and parcel with the lay; turn and serve the other way.
  4. (colloquial) A casual sexual partner.
    • 1996, JoAnn Ross, Southern Comforts, MIRA, published 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, published 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, →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?
  5. (colloquial) An act of sexual intercourse.
    • 1993, David Halberstam, The Fifties‎, Open Road Integrated Media, published 2012, →ISBN:
      Listening to this dismissal of his work, [Tennessee] Williams thought to himself of Wilder, “This character has never had a good lay.”
    • 1996, Placebo (lyrics and music), “Nancy Boy”:
      Does his make-up in his room
      Douse himself with cheap perfume
      Eyeholes in a paper bag
      Greatest lay I ever had
    • 2009, Fern Michaels, The Scoop, Kensington Books, →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, published 2011, →ISBN:
      “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—”
  6. (slang, archaic) A place or activity where someone spends a significant portion of their time.
  7. The laying of eggs.
    The hens are off the lay at present.
  8. (obsolete) A layer.
    • 1677, Hannah Woolley, The Compleat Servant-Maid‎, London: T. Passinger, page 5:
      […] 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, “Sienna, Leghorne, Pisa”, in Remarks on Several Parts of Italy, &c. in the Years 1701, 1702, 1703‎, London: J. Tonson, page 300:
      […] the whole Body of the Church is chequer’d with different Lays of White and Black Marble […]
    • 1724, Thomas Spooner, chapter 2, in A Compendious Treatise of the Diseases of the Skin‎, London, page 20:
      […] 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,
      […] 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 […]
  9. (obsolete) A basis or ground.
    • 1835, Richard architetto Brown, The Principles of Practical Perspective, page 122:
      On this lay or ground we should also add the finishing colours.
    • 1899, “MacColl v. Crompton Loom works”, in The Federal Reporter, volume 95, page 990:
      In the first MacColl patent the pattern chain and engaging rod were carried on the swinging lay on which the needle bars are mounted.
  10. (thieves' cant, obsolete) A pursuit or practice; a dodge.
    • 1859, George Washington Matsell, Vocabulum: Or, The Rogue's Lexicon. Comp. from the Most Authentic Sources, page 31:
      FIDLAM BENS. Thieves who have no particular lay, whose every finger is a fish-hook; fellows that will steal any thing they can remove.
    • 1975, H. R. F. Keating, A Remarkable Case of Burglary:
      Because I've finished, missus. Finished with the thieving lay now and forever.
Synonyms
Derived terms
Translations

Further reading

Etymology 2

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 *lókus (“water, body of water, lake”). Cognate with Icelandic lögur (“liquid, fluid, lake”), Latin lacus (“lake, hollow, hole”).

Noun

lay (plural lays)

  1. A lake.

Etymology 3

From Middle English lay, from Old French lai, from Latin laicus, from Ancient Greek λαϊκός (laïkós). Doublet of laic.

Adjective

lay (comparative more lay, superlative most lay)

  1. Not belonging to the clergy, but associated with them.
    They seemed more lay than clerical.
    a lay preacher; a lay brother
  2. Non-professional; not being a member of an organized institution.
    • 1958, Jacob Viner, The Long View and the Short, page 112:
      It is true that in adopting the short view many of the younger economists have not merely taken over the lay notions bodily.
    • 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.
  3. (card games) Not trumps.
    a lay suit
  4. (obsolete) Not educated or cultivated; ignorant.
Derived terms
Translations
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Etymology 4

See lie. This word was influenced by the present tense verb lay.

Verb

lay

  1. simple past of lie (etymology 1)
    The baby lay in its crib and slept silently.
    • 2023 November 29, Peter Plisner, “The winds of change in Catesby Tunnel”, in RAIL, number 997, page 56:
      But unlike many other tunnels that lay idle and decaying, Catesby has now found a new use as an aerodynamic wind tunnel for the motor industry.
Derived terms

Etymology 5

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 *leyg- (“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 (“to play”).

Alternative forms

Noun

lay (plural lays)

  1. A ballad or sung poem; a short poem or narrative, usually intended to be sung.
  2. 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.
Translations

Etymology 6

From Middle English lay, laye, laiȝe, leyȝe, from Old English lǣh, lēh, northern (Anglian) variants of Old English lēah (“lea”). More at lea.

Noun

lay (plural lays)

  1. (obsolete) A meadow; a lea.
    • 1808, John Curwen, Hints on the Economy of Feeding Stock and Bettering the Condition of the Poor:
      Having destroyed all old lays, I have no other hay than clover.

Etymology 7

From Middle English laige, læȝe, variants of Middle English lawe (“law”). More at law.

Noun

lay (plural lays)

  1. (obsolete) A law.
  2. (obsolete) An obligation; a vow.

Etymology 8

Calque of Yiddish לייגן (leygn, “to put, lay”).

Verb

lay (third-person singular simple present lays, present participle laying, simple past and past participle laid)

  1. (Judaism, transitive) To don or put on (tefillin (phylacteries)).

References
  1. John Bouvier (1839) “LAY”, in A Law Dictionary, […], volumes II (L–Z), Philadelphia, Pa.: T. & J. W. Johnson, […], successors to Nicklin & Johnson, […], →OCLC.
  2. “lay v.¹”, in James A. H. Murray [et al.], editors, A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volume VI, Part 1, London: Clarendon Press (1908), page 128.

See also
other terms containing the word "lay", with unclear etymology

Anagrams

Anguthimri

Verb

lay

  1. (transitive, Mpakwithi) to carry

References
  • Terry Crowley, The Mpakwithi dialect of Anguthimri (1981), page 186

Franco-Provençal

Noun

lay (Bressan, Vaudois)

  1. Archaic form of lèc (“lake”).

References

Haitian Creole

Etymology

From French l’ail (“the garlic”).

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /laj/

Noun

lay

  1. garlic

Lashi

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /laɪ̯/

Postposition

lay

  1. through
  2. across

Verb

lay

  1. to pass

References
  • Hkaw Luk (2017) A grammatical sketch of Lacid‎, Chiang Mai: Payap University (master thesis)

Malagasy

Etymology

From Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *layaʀ, from Proto-Austronesian *layaʀ.

Noun

lay

  1. sail (a piece of fabric attached to a boat)
  2. tent

References
  • lay in Malagasy dictionaries at malagasyword.org

Mauritian Creole

Etymology 1

From French ail.

Noun

lay

  1. garlic

Etymology 2

From Malagasy ley (butterfly).

Noun

lay

  1. moth

References
  • Baker, Philip & Hookoomsing, Vinesh Y. 1987. Dictionnaire de créole mauricien. Morisyen – English – Français

Middle English

Verb

lay

  1. Alternative form of leie: simple past of lien

Moore

Etymology

from French l’ail (“the garlic”)

Pronunciation

IPA(key): /láj/

Noun

lay

  1. garlic (food)

Seychellois Creole

Etymology 1

From French ail.

Noun

lay

  1. garlic

Etymology 2

From Malagasy ley (butterfly).

Noun

lay

  1. moth

References
  • Danielle D’Offay et Guy Lionnet, Diksyonner Kreol - Franse / Dictionnaire Créole Seychellois - Français

Vietnamese

Pronunciation

Verb

lay

  1. to shake

Derived terms
Derived terms
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