lay on

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

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

1. (transitive, idiomatic) to provide (food or drinks) for free

   At the conference, they laid on a wonderful buffet.

2. To provide
   • 2016 January 1, David Hytner, The Guardian‎:

     Özil has 16 assists in the Premier League and three goals; he has two more goals in the Champions League. On Monday, he took Bournemouth apart in the 2-0 win at the Emirates Stadium, setting up the first for Gabriel and scoring the second himself. Özil laid on a total of nine chances, the majority of them for Walcott.

   • 2022 January 26, Stephen Roberts, “Top of the stops: our least used stations”, in RAIL, number 949, page 56:

     Operator Abellio ScotRail doubled the Mon-Sat service from one train in each direction to two from May 2019 - it being something of a self-fulfilling prophecy that if you lay on trains, people might use them.

3. (transitive) To apply or implement (something).

   He laid on the solicitude pretty thickly.

4. (transitive, idiomatic) To repeatedly say (particular types of thing)

   He laid on compliments.

   She was fed up him laying on the jokes, which she found insulting.

5. To do something excessively.
   • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     I would I could see / this taborer! He lays it on.

6. (transitive) To cover something with a layer of (something).

   He's going to lay on a coat of primer before painting the wall.

7. (transitive, slang) To give (money, drugs, etc.) to (someone).
   • 1962, James Baldwin, Another Country, New York, N. Y.: The Dial Press, published 1963 January, pages 3–4:

     Maybe somebody would see him and recognize him, maybe one of the guys would lay enough bread on him for a meal or at least subway fare.

8. (transitive, slang, African-American Vernacular) To impart or explain (something) in words to (someone).

   Lay some wisdom on me, man.

9. (archaic) To attack or strike.
   • 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 166:

     So the lad went back again to the north wind, and said that the goat wasn't worth anything, and he wasn't going to be done out of his meal, not he! "Well," said the north wind, "I have nothing else to give you but that old stick over there in the corner; but it is a good stick, and if you only say, 'Stick of mine, lay on,' it lays on, till you say, 'Stick of mine, leave off.'"

10. (UK) To give (something) as a gift, special treat or bonus.
11. (nautical) To sail towards or to arrive at (a destination).
12. (nautical) To vigorously row (an oar) to propel a boat or ship.
13. (obsolete, printing) To feed sheets in for printing one by one.

• “lay on”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

• any ol', onlay