lay
Forms
- present (v1)
- lay
- past (v2)
- laid
- past participle (v3)
- laid
- present participle
- laying
- 3rd person singular
- lays
- Plural
- lays
Definitions
1.To place down in a position of rest, or in a horizontal position.
- A shower of rain lays the dust.
- A stone was brought, and laid upon the mouth of the den.
- 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.
2.To compel a supernatural entity to cease haunting a place, often by ritual or prayer; to exorcise or banish (a spirit or ghost).
- I just lay on the beach and watched people swim.
- Lay down on the couch.
3.To prepare (a plan, project etc.); to set out, establish (a law, principle).
- 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.
- I just lay on the beach and watched people swim.
- Lay down on the couch.
1.Arrangement or relationship; layout.
- 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.
2.A share of the profits in a business.
- While the Pequod lay at Nantucket, Peleg put Ishmael down for the three hundredth lay.
3.The direction a rope is twisted.
- Worm and parcel with the lay; turn and serve the other way.
4.A casual sexual partner.(colloquial)
- What was I, just another lay you can toss aside as you go on to your next conquest?
- Over the years she'd tried to tell himself that his uptown girl was just another lay.
- 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.
Frequency
Overall
Common· #907
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Uncommon
- General reading & writing
- Common
- Academic
- Rare
- Literature
- Uncommon
Related words
Etymology
Inherited 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”).