LAY • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Lay

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Lay

verb

(past & past part. laid; pres. part. laying)

1.

Put into a certain place or abstract location. Synonyms: place, pose, position, put, set. "Set the tray down" , "Set the dogs on the scent of the missing children" , "Place emphasis on a certain point"

2.

Put in a horizontal position. Synonyms: put down, repose. "Lay the patient carefully onto the bed"

3.

Prepare or position for action or operation. "Lay the foundation for a new health care plan"

4.

Lay eggs.

5.

Impose as a duty, burden, or punishment.

adjective

1.

Characteristic of those who are not members of the clergy. Synonyms: laic, secular. "The lay ministry"

2.

Not of or from a profession.

noun

1.

A narrative song with a recurrent refrain. Synonym: ballad.

2.

A narrative poem of popular origin. Synonym: ballad.

Lie

verb

(in the sense of being located: past lay; past part. lain, obs. lien; pres. part. lying) (in the sense of telling an untruth: past & past part. lied; pres. part. lying)

1.

Be located or situated somewhere; occupy a certain position.

2.

Be lying, be prostrate; be in a horizontal position. "The books are lying on the shelf"

3.

Originate (in). Synonyms: consist, dwell, lie in.

4.

Be and remain in a particular state or condition.

5.

Tell an untruth; pretend with intent to deceive. "She lied when she told me she was only 29"

6.

Have a place in relation to something else. Synonym: rest. "The responsibility rests with the Allies"

7.

Assume a reclining position. Synonym: lie down.

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lay on the line

Trygve Halvden Lie

WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University

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"Lay" Quotes from Famous Books

... in moving the praying-chairs from the western end of the Cathedral, and the space where they had been was already covered with heaps of straw. Under the great choir at the western end there were piles of broken glass. Part of the wonderful rose window had been shattered by a shell, and lay in a million ...

— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... introduced by Denslow Lewis at the annual meeting of the American Medical Association in 1901 on the limitation of venereal diseases (Medico-Legal Journal, June and September, 1903), there was a fairly general agreement among all the speakers that almost or quite the chief method of prevention lay in education, the education of women as much as of men. "Education lies at the bottom of the whole thing," declared one speaker (Seneca Egbert, of Philadelphia), "and we will never gain much headway until every young ...

— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... quarrel, ordered his servant to cut it off with a saw, and during the operation he could calmly sit talking and laughing with his friends. Hiko-kuro (Takayama),[FN235] a Japanese loyalist of note, one evening happened to come to a bridge where two robbers were lying in wait for him. They lay fully stretching themselves, each with his head in the middle of the bridge, that he might not pass across it without touching them. Hiko-kuro was not excited nor disheartened, but calmly approached the vagabonds and passed the bridge, treading upon their heads, which act so frightened ...

— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya

... and Tad and Professor Zepplin were pushing the other boys back toward the exit with all possible haste. It all had happened in a few seconds. Lige scrambled to his feet, rifle in hand, just in time to see the big brute charging straight at him, as if recognizing that in that quarter lay ...

— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin

... enough not to fall into the hole but he got a strong emotional shock from the experience. He, himself, did not think that his walking troubles set in immediately after this shock. Yet the hypothesis seemed to me sufficiently justified that there existed a connection, even though some weeks lay between that first experience and the first observation of the abnormal inhibition in walking. On that basis I tried to train a new associative connection. I made him drowsy and asked him to think himself once more into the situation ...

— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg

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