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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’.
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.
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.
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.
(proscribed, see usage notes) To lie: to rest in a horizontal position on a surface.
I found him laying on the floor.
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 Afrikaanslê(“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]
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
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.
Since our people have moved this boy on, and he's not to be found on his old lay
1899, Frank Norris, Blix. Moran of the Lady Letty. Essays on authorship, page 155:
"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.
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
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.
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
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, Sir Walter Scott, The Lay of the Last Minstrel:
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: […]
1925The Lay of Leithien, poem by J.R.R. Tolkien, Anglo-Saxon Professor.
^ John Bouvier (1839) “LAY”, in A Law Dictionary,, volumes II (L–Z), Philadelphia, Pa.: T. & J. W. Johnson,, successors to Nicklin & Johnson,, →OCLC.
↑ 2.02.1“lay v.¹”, in James A. H. Murray , 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