lay

verb

1. (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.”

   “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.”

   “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.”

2. (archaic, transitive)To cause to subside or abate.

   “The cloudes, as things affrayd, before him flye; / But all so soone as his outrageous powre / Is layd, they fiercely then begin to shoure […]”

   “But how upon the winds being laid, doth the ship cease to move?”

   “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”

   “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. (transitive)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. (transitive)To install certain building materials, laying one thing on top of another.

   “lay brick; lay flooring”

5. (transitive)To produce and deposit (an egg or eggs).

   “The hen laid an egg.”

   “Did dinosaurs lay their eggs in a nest?”

6. (transitive)To bet (that something is or is not the case).

   “I'll lay that he doesn't turn up on Monday.”

7. (transitive)To deposit (a stake) as a wager; to stake; to risk.

   “I dare lay mine honour / He will remain so.”

   “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, transitive)To have sex with.

   “to get laid”

   “'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. (transitive)To state; to allege.

   “to lay the venue”

10. (transitive)To point; to aim.

    “to lay a gun”

11. (transitive)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. (transitive)To place and arrange (pages) for a form upon the imposing stone.
13. (transitive)To place (new type) properly in the cases.
14. (transitive)To apply; to put.

    “The news article laid emphasis on the unusually young age of the criminals.”

    “She layeth her hands to the spindle.”

15. (transitive)To impose (a burden, punishment, command, tax, etc.).

    “The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

    “to lay a tax on land”

16. (transitive)To impute; to charge; to allege.

    “God layeth not folly to them.”

    “Lay the fault on us.”

17. (transitive)To present or offer.

    “to lay an indictment in a particular county”

    “I have laid the facts of the matter before you.”

18. (intransitive)To produce and deposit an egg or eggs.

    “It [the Houdan breed] bears confinement well, can be kept on any soil, is very hardy, lays well, its flesh is all that can be desired, and it is a nonsitter.”

    “I never kill a pullet but keep to lay the next year.”

    “Eine ausgewachsene Legehenne hat einen Zwischenraum zwischen den Beinen, in den man gut drei Finger legen kann. Ein geringerer Abstand läßt darauf schließen, daß die Henne nicht mehr oder – bei Junghennen – nochnicht legt.”

    “While the hen is laying, the birds require complete peace and quiet and should on no account be disturbed. When the hen leaves the nest, one can gently remove the egg and replace it with a dummy egg.”

    “In legal commentary a laying hen (cerc céin dothas) is valued at two bushels of grain, whereas a sexually active cock (cailech céin íunas) has only the value of one bushel. When a hen no longer lays and a cock is no longer capable of sexual activity, their value is reduced to half a bushel, as they are fit only for the cooking-pot.”

19. (intransitive)To subside or abate.

    “I believe the wind is laying and perhaps we will not have a snow. If it turns cold without snow, we can have the hog killed.”

    “... the wind laid and Nature seemed to have recovered her good humor. The landscape smiled again, and we drove about a bit to see what the storm had done.”

    “... the wind laid, and several hours afterward, two half frozen men staggered into the camp.”

20. (intransitive)To take a position; to come or go.

    “to lay forward; to lay aloft”

    “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.”

21. (intransitive, proscribed)To lie: to rest in a horizontal position on a surface.

    “I found him laying on the floor.”

    “Lay, lady, lay. / Lay across my big brass bed.”

    “Let me lay down beside you. / Let me always be with you.”

22. (form-of, past)simple past of lie (“to be oriented in a horizontal position, situated”)

    “The baby lay in its crib and slept silently.”

    “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.”

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

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)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.”

   “the lay of the land”

2. (countable, uncountable)A share of the profits in a business.

   “While the Pequod lay at Nantucket, Peleg put Ishmael down for the three hundredth lay.”

   “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. (countable, uncountable)The direction a rope is twisted.

   “Worm and parcel with the lay; turn and serve the other way.”

4. (colloquial, countable, uncountable)A casual sexual partner.

   “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.”

   ““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, countable, uncountable)An act of sexual intercourse.

   “Listening to this dismissal of his work, [Tennessee] Williams thought to himself of Wilder, “This character has never had a good lay.””

   “Does his make-up in his room Douse himself with cheap perfume Eyeholes in a paper bag Greatest lay I ever had”

   “[…] 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.”

   ““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. (archaic, countable, slang, uncountable)A place or activity where someone spends a significant portion of their time.

   “I shall be on that lay nae mair”

   “Since our people have moved this boy on, and he's not to be found on his old lay”

   “"Well, you see, son," Kitcell had explained to Wilbur, "os-ten-siblee we are after shark-liver oil— and so we are; but also we are on any lay that turns up; ready for any game, from wrecking to barratry.”

7. (countable, uncountable)The laying of eggs.

   “The hens are off the lay at present.”

8. (countable, obsolete, uncountable)A layer.

   “[…] 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 […]”

   “[…] the whole Body of the Church is chequer’d with different Lays of White and Black Marble […]”

   “[…] 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. (countable, obsolete, uncountable)A basis or ground.

   “On this lay or ground we should also add the finishing colours.”

   “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. (countable, obsolete, uncountable)A pursuit or practice; a dodge.

    “FIDLAM BENS. Thieves who have no particular lay, whose every finger is a fish-hook; fellows that will steal any thing they can remove.”

    “"It isn't an exchange lay, at all events," said Mr Carlyle. "His inner case is only half the size of the other and couldn't possibly be substituted."”

    “Because I've finished, missus. Finished with the thieving lay now and forever.”

11. A lake.
12. A ballad or sung poem; a short poem or narrative, usually intended to be sung.

    “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.”

    “If these brief lays, of Sorrow born, ⁠Were taken to be such as closed ⁠Grave doubts and answers here proposed, Then these were such as men might scorn: […]”

    “1925 The Lay of Leithien, poem by J.R.R. Tolkien, Anglo-Saxon Professor.”

13. 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.”

14. (obsolete)A meadow; a lea.

    “Having destroyed all old lays, I have no other hay than clover.”

15. (obsolete)A law.

    “A woman worthy of immortall prayse, / Which for this Realme found many goodly layes”

16. (obsolete)An obligation; a vow.

    “they bound themselues by a sacred lay and oth to fight it out to the last man”

adj

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.

   “It is true that in adopting the short view many of the younger economists have not merely taken over the lay notions bodily.”

   “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.”

   “In what could become a model program for courses across the U.S., this state's gay health consultant has begun training bartenders and bar owners as lay health educators.”

3. Not trumps.

   “a lay suit”

4. (obsolete)Not educated or cultivated; ignorant.

name

1. A river in western France.
2. A surname.