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waylay. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
waylay, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
waylay in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
waylay you have here. The definition of the word
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English
Etymology
From way + lay, likely a calque of Middle Dutch wegelagen (“besetting of ways, lying in wait with evil or hostile intent along public ways”). Compare Middle Low German wegelagen, German wegelagern (“to waylay; rob”).
Pronunciation
Verb
waylay (third-person singular simple present waylays, present participle waylaying, simple past and past participle waylaid or (nonstandard) waylayed)
- (transitive) To lie in wait for and attack from ambush.
- Synonyms: ambush, lurk
- (transitive) To accost or intercept unexpectedly.
- Synonym: buttonhole
1986 November 24, Susan Sontag, “The Way We Live Now”, in The New Yorker:And when some of the friends, the ones who came every day, waylaid the doctor in the corridor, Stephen was the one who asked the most informed questions, who’d been keeping up not just with the stories that appeared several times a week in the Times […]
Translations
to lie in wait for and attack from ambush
to accost or intercept unexpectedly