lay
/leɪ/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.64 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "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’."
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”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian lääse (“to lay; to lie”), West Frisian lizze (“to lay, to lie”), Cimbrian leng (“to lay”), Dutch leggen (“to lay”), German legen (“to lay”), Limburgish lègke (“to lay”), Luxembourgish leeën (“to lay”), Yiddish לייגן (leygn, “to lay”), Danish lægge (“to lay”), Faroese, Icelandic leggja (“to lay”), Norwegian Bokmål legge (“to lay”), Norwegian Nynorsk legga, legge, leggja, leggje (“to lay”), Swedish lägga (“to lay”), Gothic 𐌻𐌰𐌲𐌾𐌰𐌽 (lagjan, “to lay”), Old French laier, laiier, laire (“to leave”), Albanian lag (“troop, band, war encampment”).