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Lay   Listen
noun
Lay  n.  
1.
That which lies or is laid or is conceived of as having been laid or placed in its position; a row; a stratum; a layer; as, a lay of stone or wood. "A viol should have a lay of wire strings below." Note: The lay of a rope is right-handed or left-handed according to the hemp or strands are laid up. See Lay, v. t., 16. The lay of land is its topographical situation, esp. its slope and its surface features.
2.
A wager. "My fortunes against any lay worth naming."
3.
(a)
A job, price, or profit. (Prov. Eng.)
(b)
A share of the proceeds or profits of an enterprise; as, when a man ships for a whaling voyage, he agrees for a certain lay. (U. S.)
4.
(Textile Manuf.)
(a)
A measure of yarn; a lea. See 1st Lea (a).
(b)
The lathe of a loom. See Lathe, 3.
5.
A plan; a scheme. (Slang)
Lay figure.
(a)
A jointed model of the human body that may be put in any attitude; used for showing the disposition of drapery, etc.
(b)
A mere puppet; one who serves the will of others without independent volition.
Lay race, that part of a lay on which the shuttle travels in weaving; called also shuttle race.
the lay of the land, the general situation or state of affairs.
to get the lay of the land, to learn the general situation or state of affairs, especially in preparation for action.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Lay" Quotes from Famous Books



... discovering a coin in his hand, for which, however, none the less, he manages in the recesses of his robe to find a place; and you are then directed to the room where the liqueur, together with sweets and picture post-cards, is sold by another monk, assisted by a lay attendant, and the visit to ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas

... sailor on the North Pole has untied all four knots," said Gipsy to herself, as she lay awake listening to the blowing of the gale. It was indeed a fearful storm. The vessel was tossed about like a cork: one moment her bows would be plumped deep in the water, and her stern lifted in mid-air, with the whirling ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil

... restfully that night. He waked again, but very slowly, and without any movement of his body. He lay with his face towards the door, dreamily considering that the landlord, for all his pride in his new paint, had employed a bad workman who had left a black strip of the door unpainted,—a fairly wide strip, too, which his host should never ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason

... a music that should be a bridge to the Superman, the man whose every motion would be carefree. He had seen striding across mountain chains in the bright air of an eternal morning a youth irradiant with unbroken energy, before whom all the world lay open in vernal sunshine like a domain before its lord. He had seen one beside whom the other musicians would stand as convicts from Siberian prison camps who had stumbled upon a banquet of the gods. He had seen a young Titan of music, drunken with life ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... not yet "writ large" in law and political rights that respect for woman which all our education, industry, religion, art, home life and social culture express; if we, who are still inconsistent and not yet out of the transition stage from the father-rule to the equal reign of both sexes; if we lay violent hands upon these backward peoples and give them only our law and our political rights as they relate to women, we shall do horrible injustice to the savage women, and through them to the whole process of social growth for their people. When we tried to divide "in severalty" the lands of ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... prescribe is "to lay down as a rule or a remedy;" to proscribe is "to condemn to death or to ...
— Practical Exercises in English • Huber Gray Buehler

... didn't mean to have any photographs until the experiment was quite finished—to mortify me in future with their record of imperfection; but I'm so nearly perfect now that, really, it's time I had something to tell me how I do look. Of course, as fast as I can lay hands on them, I'm destroying every likeness of the old Nelly. At the studio it was such a revelation—the care and intelligence the man displayed, the skill of the posing—that when I got home full ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark

... too seriously. When you were little and all the world was gay and everybody happy, you must needs get the Little Mermaid's troubles to grieve over. Come with me into the music room. You remember the musical setting I once made you for the Lay of the Jabberwock? I was trying it over the other night, long after you were in bed, and I decided it was quite as fine as the Erl-King music. How I wish I could give you some of the cake that Alice ate and make you a little girl again. Then, when you had got through ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather

... dear to Leonax, I, too, would have loved them! This is the guise in which the future has appeared to me in many a quiet hour. But shall Charmian—who, when her heart throbbed still more warmly and life lay fair before her, laid her first love upon the altar of sacrifice for her royal playfellow—abandon Cleopatra in misfortune from mere selfish scruples? No, no!—Like you, I too belong—come what ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... out, keeping my place in the ranks of an insignificant multitude. How little that was to boast of, after all! I turned my burning face away; under the low sun, glowing, darkened and crimson, like un ember snatched from the fire, the sea lay outspread, offering all its immense stillness to the approach of the fiery orb. Twice he was going to speak, but checked himself; at last, as if he had ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... whole pages of exultation, to find a note of sorrow for the fall of some brave officer; it comes wailing in, like a funeral strain amidst a peal of triumph, itself triumphant too. Such was the lamentation over Wolfe. Somewhere, in this volume of newspapers, though we cannot now lay our finger upon the passage, we recollect a report that General Wolfe was slain, not by the enemy, but by a shot ...
— Old News - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... he wouldn't sell the furniture—he'd just move it into another house, and give her a darn good scare. He'd get a better one, that had a porcelain bathtub instead of a zinc one, and a better porch, where the kid could be out in the sun. Yes, sir, he'd just do that little thing, and lay low and see what Marie did about that. Keep her guessing—that was the play ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower

... wood range, close all the dampers, clean the grate, and remove the ashes from the pan. Put on the covers and brush the dust off the stove. Open the creative damper and the oven damper, leaving the check damper closed. Lay some paper, slightly crumpled into rolls, across the base of the grate. Place small pieces of kindling wood across one another, with the large pieces on top. Lay pieces of hardwood or a shovelful of coal on ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario

... of the writer. But no, it is not the mere gift of expression, it is not the mere craft of the pen, it is not the mere taste in arrangement of word and cadence, which thus enables the one to interpret the mind, the heart, the soul of the many. It is a power breathed into him as he lay in his cradle, and a power that gathered around itself, as he grew up, all the influences he acquired, whether from observation of external nature, or from study of men and books, or from that experience of daily life which varies ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... turbulent and foggy ocean washed its shores. It was girt round by a belt of granite rocks, or by wide tracts of sand. The foliage of its woods was dark and gloomy, for they were composed of firs, larches, evergreen oaks, wild olive-trees, and laurels. Beyond this outer belt lay the thick shades of the central forest, where the largest trees which are produced in the two hemispheres grow side by side. The plane, the catalpa, the sugar-maple, and the Virginian poplar mingled their branches with those of the oak, the beech, and the lime. In these, as in the forests of the ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... had no idea in which direction South Wall Street lay; but she knew a policeman when she saw one, and believed those minions of the law to be ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe

... of the sack-formed animal, there was a brownish, pear-shaped bag, of different sizes in different individuals, and occasionally broader even than the thorax. This bag contained either pulpy matter, or a great mass of spermatozoa. Before being disturbed, these spermatozoa lay parallel to each other in flocks, and they yielded to the needle in a peculiar manner, so that I found (having had experience with these bodies in living Cirripedia) I could almost tell before examination under the compound microscope, whether or not I should see spermatozoa. Many had distinct ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin

... jam is fit to pot, Whether the milk is going to turn, Whether a hen will lay or not, Is things as some folks never learn. I know the weather by the sky, I know what herbs grow in what lane; And if sick men are going to die, Or if ...
— The Rainbow and the Rose • E. Nesbit

... CAPACITIES OF MIXERS.—In planning plant lay-outs it is often desirable to know the sizes, capacities, etc., of various mixers in order to make preliminary estimates. Tables XXII to XXXIII give these data for a number of the more commonly employed machines. The Eureka, ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette

... words of love had been spoken, he turned himself on his pillow, and lay silent for a long while,—for hours, till the morning sun had risen, and the daylight was again seen through the window curtain. It was not much after midsummer, and the daylight came to them early. From time to time she had looked at him, and each hour in the night ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope

... long he remained insensible. It might have been only a few minutes, or perhaps half an hour slipped by while he lay there. When he finally opened his eyes he looked up into a dusky face, and realized that it belonged ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen

... themselves, like a Court full of wise Counsellors, for the pleasure and instruction of your Beloved. Well, what could you wish for more? D'ye talk of mony? Pish, that's stamp'd with hammers: give it liberally; the good Woman knows how and where to lay it out. If there be but little mony by the hand; be silent of that, it might happen to disturb your Dear, and who knows wherein it may do her harm. It is not the fashion that Women, especially young married ones, should take care for that. 'Tis care enough for her, if she ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh

... the second morning, and if any had thus long survived the stifling air and torrid earth which surrounded them, their misery probably was at this moment brought to a close. The villa of which we speak lay exactly between the city and the mountain, and must have felt the first, and, if there were degrees of misery, where all perished alike, the worst effects of this fearful visitation. Fearful is such a visitation in the present day, even to those who crowd to see an eruption of Vesuvius ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... a posture of respect, uncovered to the girdle. Two wide alcoves receded on either side, in one of which blazed a cheerful wood fire, engrossed by indolent cats; while in the other, on a flowered satin ottoman, surrounded by withered slaves and juvenile pages, and supported by gay velvet cushions, lay "His most Christian majesty, Sahela Selasse!" The Dech Agulari (state doorkeeper,) as master of the ceremonies, stood with a rod of green rushes to preserve the exact distance of approach to royalty; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various

... denounced the marriage of priests, made war on the most sacred instincts of human nature. He may have strengthened the papal domination, but he weakened the restraints of home. Only a dark and beclouded age could have upheld such a policy. Upon the Church of the Middle Ages we lay the blame of these false ideas. She is in a measure responsible for the follies of Abelard and Heloise. They were not greater than the ideas of their age. Had Abelard been as bold in denouncing the stupid custom of the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord

... much," I said nastily. (When people presage a remark by saying that they only say it because they love you, you may lay long odds that it's going to be disagreeable!) "It certainly sounds a gruesome prospect. Not even a choice between bankruptcy and mania, but a certainty of both! And within a year, too! Such a short run for one's money! Aunt Eliza had some suggestion to make, then? And you evidently approved. ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... he had made, how much that income would afford him every week and day of the year. One of his oeconomical practices was, as soon as any repair was wanting in or about his house, to have it immediately performed. When he had money to spare, he chose to lay in a provision of linen or clothes, or any other necessaries; as then, he said, he could afford it, which he might not be so well able to do when the actual want came; in consequence of which method, he had a considerable supply of necessary articles lying by him, beside ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... to track the changes of the shadows on the grass, or watch the rents of twilight through angry cloud. And we find that whereas all the pleasure of the mediaeval was in stability, definiteness, and luminousness, we are expected to rejoice in darkness, and triumph in mutability; to lay the foundation of happiness in things which momentarily change or fade; and to expect the utmost satisfaction and instruction from what it is impossible to arrest, and ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... awfully. He went up and jagged a pin into the baby's leg quietly, so that his wife could not see him. Still it lay there wrapped in slumber; and after repeating the experiment he abandoned himself to despair and went back to his office, uncertain whether to fly or to go home and confess the terrible ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)

... into a death trap," he told Neilson one morning. "If he is here, what chance have we got; he'd have weeks to explore the country and lay an ambush for us. Besides, I believe he's dead. I don't believe a human being could have ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall

... are our chances worse than they were before? In no way. We can to-day, just as well as we could yesterday, lay our hands upon those proofs which we know do exist, and which would save us. Who tells us that at this moment Sir Francis Burnett and Suky Wood may not have been found? Is ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau

... one remembers that the oxygen in the blood is the chief scavenger of the body and that the vitality of the red corpuscles and their abundance is an essential factor in curing the disease, it will be seen why fresh air is so important. The tendency to-day is to insist on fresh air and to lay less stress on the climate ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden

... leaders: Buddhist clergy; labor unions; Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or LTTE (insurgent group fighting for a separate state); radical chauvinist Sinhalese groups such as the National Movement Against Terrorism; Sinhalese Buddhist lay groups ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... After half an hour they saw ahead of them the loom of the forest, and with some trepidation they entered the gloom cast by the towering, fernlike trees, whose tops disappeared in murky fog. Tangled vines impeded their progress. Quagmires lay in wait for them, and tough weeds tripped them, sometimes throwing one or another into the mud among squirming small reptiles that lashed at them with spiked, poisonous feet and then fell to pieces, each piece to lie in the bubbling ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various

... lay at Bordentown and Crosswix, with three thousand six hundred militia, were therefore ordered to join the Commander-in-chief, whose whole effective force, with this addition, did not exceed ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall

... different classes of professing Christians have contrived to nullify the value of their admission that the Bible is inspired. Some would distinguish the inspiration of the Historical Book from that of those which we call Prophetical. Others profess to lay their finger on what are the proper subjects of Inspiration, and what are not. Some are for a general superintending guidance which yet did not effectually guide; while others represent the sacred Writers as subject, in what they delivered, to ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... in a wood, and standing on the summit of the Oderberge, he had pointed out his house to Helen, or rather, had pointed out the wedge of pines in which it lay. She had exclaimed, "Oh, how lovely! That's the place for me!" and in the evening Frieda appeared in her bedroom. "I have a message, dear Helen," etc., and so she had, but had been very nice when Helen laughed; quite understood—a forest too solitary and damp—quite agreed, but Herr ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... improving himself in the Latin and Greek tongues at this country school, he often visited a minister, whose charge lay in the same presbytery with his father's, the revd. Mr. Rickerton, a man of such amazing powers, that many persons of genius, as well as Mr. Thomson, who conversed with him, have been astonished, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber

... Hermiston came before her in a flash at the sight of the torn page. "I was surely fey!" she said, echoing the words of Dandie, and at the suggested doom her high spirits deserted her. She flung herself prone upon the bed, and lay there, holding the psalm-book in her hands for hours, for the more part in a mere stupor of unconsenting pleasure and unreasoning fear. The fear was superstitious; there came up again and again in her memory Dandie's ill-omened words, and a hundred grisly and black tales out of the ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... swerve a hair's-breadth from them for any worldly advantage, or for fear of any hardship. Only this passion and this enthusiasm spring with him entirely from the head. The heart, the deep emotional power of human love and pity, lay dormant in him. Humanity, which he would serve to the last drop of his blood, is for him a body of foreigners—French, English, Germans—whom he has studied from books, and whom he has met only in hotels and watering-places during his ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev

... at the rocks over the backs of their horses; but the return-fire was too hot, and they mounted again, "and galloped back or crawled away into a clump of reeds for cover, where they were shortly afterward taken prisoners as they lay among the reeds. Some thirty prisoners were so taken, and during the night which followed the Boers carried away another thirty killed and wounded—the wounded to Krugersdorp hospital." Sixty per cent. of the assaulted force disposed of—according ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... sunrise on the following morning they all departed, accompanied by six of my men, who were to bring a reply to my letter. These people had two donkeys, and just as they were starting, a crowd of natives made a rush to gather a heap of dung that lay beneath the animals; a great fight and tussle took place for the possession of this valuable medicine, in the midst of which the donkey lifted up his voice and brayed so lustily that the crowd rushed away with ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker

... covert allusion to her own prodigality and by the reference to her countrymen. She found no difficulty in inducing Charles to answer through a proclamation sent by a herald to the confederates, commanding Conde, Coligny, D'Andelot, La Rochefoucauld, Genlis, and the other leaders, by name, to lay down the arms which they had taken up without his consent.[452] Perceiving the mistake they had committed in making requests which, although just and appropriate, were in part but ill-suited to the times, the Protestants began to abate their demands. Confining themselves to the matter ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... the boundary brook hundreds of times in his brief life, and it had generally come into his mind, with a boyish sense of adventure, that when he did so he was putting foot into the enemy's country. But the feeling had never been so strong as now. The Mountain Farm was home, and beyond it lay the wide, wide world, looking wide indeed, and bleak and cold. What with hot rebellion at injustice and cold fear of the vast and friendless expanse, Joe's tears multiplied, and leaning his arms upon the low coping of the ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray

... that," returned Lady Dacre between vexation and laughing, "and lay it up against you, too. But, poor fellow, he is so in love with his pretty cousin, and she ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various

... was called to the Bar. But it is a universal tradition that, in these years of apprenticeship, in more senses than one, he, partly in gratifying his own love of wandering, and partly in serving his father's business by errands to clients, etc., did more than lay the foundation of that unrivalled knowledge of Scotland, and of all classes in it, which plays so important a part in his literary work. I say 'of all classes in it,' and this point is of the greatest weight. Scott has been accused (for ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury

... left for Mexico, to lay matters from the missionary standpoint before the new viceroy, Bucareli. He arrived in the city of Mexico in February, 1773. With resistless energy and eloquence he pleaded for the preservation of ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James

... stove she sat night after night playing cinch or dominoes to amuse my father, while creaking footsteps went by on the frosty board-walks and in a distant room my aunt lay waiting for the soft step of the Grim Intruder. It must have seemed a gray outlook for my bride but she never by ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... who should it be but the stage ruffian? if there was a sofa in the room, my life on't, he'd pop from behind it.—Zounds! that fellow will lay straw before my door every ...
— The Dramatist; or Stop Him Who Can! - A Comedy, in Five Acts • Frederick Reynolds

... even consented to lie down for half an hour. She was now, in truth, scarcely able to stand, being worn out with the mental struggle. She lay passive, with Jael ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... of hoofs outside, and Pierre and the company surgeon hurried into the room. The boy's moans were stilled and he lay staring questioningly with large eyes at ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason

... my Sister, for one moment, lay aside all prejudice, and compare the two men in their births, their educations, their persons, their understandings, their manners, their air, and their whole deportments; and in their fortunes too, taking ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... thus they sighed, That at their threshold, fainting, lay The child for whom they would have died, For whom they prayed ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning

... all the Indians, had two sons and two daughters by his wife Procriti. The elder son was a giant, the younger was a little hunchback, the two daughters were pretty. As soon as the giant was conscious of his strength, he lay with his two sisters, and made the little hunchback serve him. Of his two sisters, one was his cook, the other his gardener. When the giant wanted to sleep, he started by chaining his little hunchback brother to a tree; and when the brother escaped, he ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire

... nothin'," he assured. "Cal'late maybe I'll lay down and turn in a little spell afore ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln

... coming suddenly upon the river in one of its wildest passes; but I little dreamed all the while that there, in a wrinkle (or shall I say furrow?) of the Maryland hills, almost visible from the outlook of the bronze squaw on the dome of the Capitol, and just around the head of Oxen Run, lay Pumpkintown. ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... went home with a heavy heart, and that spring and summer toiled and tried hard to forget. In the fall, after the harvest was over, he saw that it would not do, and tramped the full fortnight's journey that lay between him and Ona. ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... of Philosophy opened its first session in the summer of 1879. The dust of late July lay velvet soft and velvet deep on all the highways; or, stirred by the passing wheel, rose in slow clouds, not unemblematic of the transcendental haze which filled the mental ...
— Four Americans - Roosevelt, Hawthorne, Emerson, Whitman • Henry A. Beers

... was at last able to learn the particulars of Cave's death. He had been found dead in his shop in the early morning, the day after his last visit to Mr. Wace, and the crystal had been clasped in his stone-cold hands. His face was smiling, said Mrs. Cave, and the velvet cloth from the minerals lay on the floor at his feet. He must have been dead five or six hours when he ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells

... exceedingly hot and sultry one. Daisy had no visiters until quite late in the afternoon; however it was a peaceful day. She lay quiet and happy, and Juanita was quite as well contented that the house should be empty and they two alone. Late in the afternoon, ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner

... assaying cannot lay claim to scientific accuracy, it is by no means so imperfect as some writers would have us believe, who state that a loss of 5 to 10 per cent. arises in the operation. It is certainly the most ready and expeditious ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer

... were threatening—they were always threatening—war could be had with them any time by just pushing out upon them. To the south, Sicily, Greece, Persia and Egypt had been exploited—fame and empire lay in the dim and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... which I now had under my field-glass, as I lay at full length behind the friendly bayberry bushes. Up to this point, for aught that appeared, he was quite unaware of my espionage. Like all the members of his family that I have ever seen, he possessed so much patience that it required much patience to ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey

... of your friends are like me. I have not read a book for years except my ledger and I did not intend to read yours, but when I began it I could not lay it down. My ledger is the only book I have ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie

... chair near her, lay, on this afternoon, a map which for many days she had been studying; and opening it once more, she ran a finger along the dotted lines, mentally debating whether it would be best to go by rail to Ottawa, by water to Sault St. Marie, whence the new railway could be easily reached, or ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... king firing all the night from the other parts of the river, that by daylight all the batteries at the new work were mounted, the trench lined with 2000 musketeers, and all the utensils of the bridge lay ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe

... suddenly, about eleven o'clock, there came a summons and alarm: hurrying to his Brother's room, he found his Brother dying; and in a short while more the faint last struggle was ended, and all those struggles and strenuous often-foiled endeavors of eight-and-thirty years lay ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... heart, and both soon drowsed off into hazy slumber. But neither wanted any dinner that night, and did not attempt much exertion until late the next day. Hope awoke, feeling much brighter, and felt that the motion was not so distressing as yesterday. She looked across at Faith, who lay with closed ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... bows. But not long did he gaze on this; for in the scuppers under the bulwarks, in every attitude of complete woe, some prostrate, some supine, all depicted with the liveliest yellows and greens of seasickness beneath their theatrical paint, lay the crew of H.M.S. Poseidon. Yes, even the wicked Lieutenant reclined there with the rest, with one hand upraised and grasping a ring-bolt, while the soft sway of the ship now lifted his garish tinselled epaulettes into the sunlight, now sank and drew across them, as upon ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Doctor. I've been a long spell away from Hetty, and I don't know as I should take on so now. That night I never slept. I lay kickin' and tumblin' all night, and before mornin' I'd resolved to quit Simsbury, and go seek my fortin' beyond seas, hopin' to come back to Hetty, arter all, with riches to take care on her right there in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various

... breeze from the westward, the Stella sailed on her return to the Isle of Wight. The fine weather continued until she had got clear of Scilly. While she was still in the chops of the Channel it fell a dead calm, and a thick fog came on. There the Stella lay, drifted slowly up by one tide and to the westward again by the other. Night came on. The officers agreed that they had never been in the Channel with such perfect darkness as hung over the water. Lights were hoisted, and a look-out ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston

... fingers—the itching to cut something was too strong to be resisted—the tantalising pigtail was twitching under his very nose—and the next moment, ere the owner of the scissors could realise the crime he was committing, the once active pigtail lay as dead as any ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham

... young mistress; nevertheless, the truth that is in them came down upon her very heart; and from that time she was Esther's devoted slave. There was no open demonstration of feeling; but Esther's wishes were laws to her, and Esther's welfare lay nearest her heart of all things in ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner

... landscape, framed in a window: "They sat together in a window whose lattice lay back against the wall, and displayed, beyond the garden trees and the wild green park, the valley of Gimmerton, with a long line of mist winding nearly to its top (for very soon after you pass the chapel, ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair

... conditions, of social, political and even religious institutions. Nothing, in this day, and especially in this country of free thought and liberty of speech, is taken for granted merely because it can lay claim to the honors of a great antiquity, or can number thousands or millions of adherents. Vast differences are to be observed in governments, churches, creeds and social practices; and all, however ...
— Allopathy and Homoeopathy Before the Judgement of Common Sense! • Frederick Hiller

... birds, that are plentifully supplied throughout the year with their adapted food, and are covered with houses from the inclemency of the weather, lay their eggs at any season: which evinces that the spring of the year is not pointed out to them by a ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... removal of Plehve, who had greatly hampered them by his energetic police administration, enabled them to work more freely, and they looked with a friendly eye on the efforts of the Liberal Zemstvo-ists; but they took no part in the agitation, because the Zemstvo world lay outside their sphere of action. In the labour world, to which they confined their attention, they must have foreseen that a crisis would sooner or later be produced by the war, and that they would then have an excellent ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... hour the Roving Bess was running at the rate of twelve knots, under close-reefed top-sails, before a steady gale, which in half-an-hour later increased to a hurricane, compelling them to take in all sail and "lay to." The sun set in a blaze of mingled black and lurid clouds, as if the heavens were on fire; the billows rose to their utmost height as the shrieking winds heaved them upwards, and then, cutting off their crests, hurled the spray along like driving clouds of ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne

... 17. Suppose that three alternatives lay before a man, each of the three is of course an object of Deliberation; when he has made his choice, the alternative chosen does not cease to be in nature an object of Deliberation, but superadds the character of being chosen and ...
— Ethics • Aristotle

... how, he became free; and yet, in open day, and amid ten thousand flaming guardians of freedom,[227] he escapes with perfect impunity! Is he not a most marvelous proper rogue? But perhaps the reason the abolitionists do not lay hands on him is that he is an imaginary being, who, though intangible and invisible, will yet serve just as well to create an alarm and keep up a great excitement as if he ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... foreigners to form the prodigious deficiency of John Bull. If I could have taken refuge, for that night at least, in the saddest cell of the old convent, or in the deepest dungeon of the new prison, I should have gone to either with indulgence. I longed to lay down my aching brains upon my pillow, and forget the fever of the time. But prisoners have no choice; and the turnkey, after repeating his recommendations that I should not commit an act of such profound offence as to appear in the assembly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various

... ordeal for her, but she had insisted on coming—fearing, hoping that she might be of use to Nigel in the witness box. By the time they reached the great, crowded room, with its table set at the far end, its empty chairs, and the platform upon which the two bodies lay shrouded in their black coverings, she was crying, though plainly ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew

... undeniably true that I never hesitated in making an assault upon her door. It was locked on the inside, and I could hear nothing except a faint moaning sound within. Fearing the worst, I threw my whole weight and strength against it, and it flew open with a crash. There lay Miss Jorgensen upon the floor, in the middle of her little room, uttering low moaning sobs, though apparently not unconscious. I stooped over and lifted her in my arms to lay her upon the bed, and as I did so, a small pocket-pistol fell at my feet, and I discovered blood ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor

... devastation, proceeded no further than into the countryof the Hernicans. Veturius routed and put the enemy to flight in the first engagement. A party of plunderers, led over the Praenestine Mountains, and from thence sent down into the plains, was unobserved by Lucretius, while he lay encamped among the Hernicans. These laid waste all the countryaround Praeneste and Gabii: from the Gabinian territory they turned their course toward the heights of Tusculum; great alarm was excited in the city of ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius

... men in striped suits, with cropped heads, and faces branded by despair, filed up. Faintly a mutter of sobs and groans echoed, "But for you." The clanking ceased; there came the slow shuffling of many feet, and a procession of men, bearing stretchers on which lay shrouded figures, advanced into view. Like a solemn knell upon my ear smote the reproach, "Suicides because of you." And now out of the caldron sprang a mob of goblin dollar-signs compounded of blood-red snakes and copper bars, that danced a mad saraband ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... and 5. Stretched along the bottom-boards lay a tall young man with straw-coloured hair and beard: and in his arms, tightly clasped, and wrapped in a shawl and seaman's jacket, a young woman. Her arms were about the young man and her face pressed close and hidden against his side. He must ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... by the light of the moon, near its first quarter, that while one party of savages were at work upon the Dartmouth, others were warping the Elenor and the Beaver to the dock. It was nearly low tide, and the waves were swashing the timbers beneath the wharf. Not far away lay the Romney with her cannon peeping from the portholes. Very quietly the Mohawks began their work, hoisting chests from the hold, cutting them with hatchets, pouring the contents over the sides of ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... will be called into council. Some will recommend a retired life in a distant suburb, where it is currently reported that L250 a year may be made to play the part of L2,000 in the heart of May Fair. Others will hint that governesses have been known, after years of painful labour, to lay by a sufficiency for a short old age; others, again, will dive into the storehouse of their reminiscences, in order to produce for inspection the well-known example of a colonel and his wife, who defied both the fates and the rheumatism in the modest pension of a Continental ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. July 4, 1891 • Various

... lay at their berths. Even as the boys crossed the great yard a cruiser was being warped in, ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock

... as I can see, the dilemma in which our generation finds itself is this,—we want to know what there is in Christianity that we can lay hold of. We should like to believe, but, as George says, all our education contradicts the doctrines that are most insisted upon. We don't know where to turn. We have the choice of going to people like George, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... and local terms Besprinkled o'er thy rustic lay, Though well such dialect confirms Its power unletter'd minds to sway, It is not these that most display Thy sweetest charms, thy gentlest thrall,— Words, phrases, fashions, pass away, But TRUTH and NATURE ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... lived a man who was very poor, and who had many children; so many that he was unable to support them. As he could not endure the idea of their perishing of hunger, he was often tempted to destroy them; his wife alone prevented him. One night, as he lay asleep, there appeared to him a lovely child in a vision. The ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten

... Spartans and their allies on the field. The Spartans, moreover, resolved, by means of their allies, to send a fleet able to cope with that of Athens, and even were so transported with enmity and jealousy as to lay schemes for invoking the aid ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... himself. He found strength and comfort in this reflection, and finally through it reached the higher attitude, which made him rise to his feet, clasp his hands, and lift his face with whispered prayer to the Father and Lover of souls. Leaving Lucy in His care, his heart was at rest, and he lay ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... soon show you,' answered the girl, taking the lid from the box, and at the very bottom lay a scrap of a cloak, a mussel shell, and two fish scales. Two drops of water were glistening on the cloak, and these the girl shook on the ground. In an instant the garden and lawn and everything else had vanished utterly, as if the earth had opened and swallowed them up, and as far ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various

... how from far, upon the eastern road, The star-led wizards haste with odors sweet; O run, prevent them with thy humble ode, And lay it lowly at his blessed feet; Have thou the honor first thy Lord to greet, And join thy voice unto the angel-quire, From out his secret altar touch'd ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various

... the possession of those rich endowments; but I wonder whether they would have been more precious in his eyes had he known that they had so moved the heart of the great Duke as to have induced him to lay his coronet at the lady's feet. I think that had he known that the lady had refused the coronet, that knowledge would have enhanced ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... tapestries hung on the walls. The ceiling was slightly vaulted, and in the centre of each mesh of the net designed upon it glittered a richly gilded kingfisher from the family coat of arms. Bear and leopard skins lay on the cushions, and upon the shelf which surrounded three sides of the apartment stood costly vases, gold and silver utensils, Venetian mirrors and goblets. The chairs and furniture were made of rare woods inlaid with ebony and mother of pearl, brought by way of Genoa from Moorish Spain. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... beat them anywhere. I don't. The Sentimental is rather stupid, perhaps; but then she scores by her music. Nan's the one for my money, though. She isn't the prettiest; but set her down at any dinner table, and you can lay odds on her against the field. I believe there are a dozen old gentlemen who have got her name in their will—not that she cares for worldly things any more—it is all sanctity now. I ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black

... the only instance I know of hent as a noun. The verb to hent, to lay hold of, is not so rare. 'Wait till thou be aware of a grasp with a more horrid ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... Julia was herself the means of causing this determination to be carried into effect. One night she and Dr. Lacey had been strolling for more than an hour through the many delightful walks in the garden, which lay upon the lake shore. To her great satisfaction, they were entirely alone, for Mr. Middleton and Florence were engaged in their favorite game of chess, while Mabel was eagerly listening to Ashton, who was relating to her some of his India ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes

... offend him, who by all Englishmen is confessed to be in a naturall politique capacity of being a Supreame power." He therefore, he said, made this declaration in the presence of God, that if any government became fixed in London, he would immediately lay down his commission. When this was recorded and they were still of the same mind, he was ready ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... tumultuous procession to the Hofburg, to force the assent of the government to a petition based on the catch-words of the Revolution. [Sidenote: Fall of Metternich, March 13, 1848.] The authorities, taken by surprise, were forced to temporize and agreed to lay the petition before the emperor. Meanwhile round the hall of the diet a riot had broken out; the soldiers intervened and blood was shed. The middle classes now joined the rebels; and the riots had become a revolution. Threatened ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... right here in this paragraph, in black and white. I take it up and look at it, I read it once more and lay it down. ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee

... my loss as much as I should otherwise have done. At any rate, ten days after the news reached me, I had shipped aboard the Little Emily, trading schooner, for Papeete, booked for five years among the islands, where I was to learn to water copra, to cook my balances, and to lay the foundation of the strange adventures that I am going to ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby

... will be the worst, I'm thinking, we've seen these years gone by. DEIRDRE — tearing open the press and pulling out clothes and tapestries. — Lay these mats and hangings by the windows, and at the tables for our feet, and take out the skillets of silver, and the golden cups we have, and our two flasks of wine. LAVARCHAM. What ails you? DEIRDRE — gathering up a dress. — Lay them out quickly, ...
— Deirdre of the Sorrows • J. M. Synge

... popping up to fire and then popping down again." These shelters, a long line of them, are littered thick with empty cartridge cases, hundreds in each; one thinks involuntarily of grouse-driving. Bodies, still unburied, lay about when I was there. Such odours! such sights! The unimaginable things that the force of shot and shell can do to poor, soft, human flesh. I saw soldiers who had helped to do the work ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps

... last incumbent; what vexations, what disappointments, what grievous mistakes, what very objectionable manners! Not one of them, who had aimed at high purpose, but had been thwarted, beaten, and habitually insulted! What a gloom lay on the features of those famous chieftains, Calhoun, Clay, and Webster; what varied expression of defeat and unsatisfied desire; what a sense of self-importance and senatorial magniloquence; what a craving for flattery; ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams

... in leues all torne With Letters, dymme, almost defaced cleane Thy hyllynge rote, with wormes all to worne Thou lay, that pyte it was to sene Bounde with olde quayres, for ages all hoorse and grene Thy mater endormed, for lacke of thy presence But nowe arte losed, ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts

... after this experience we were fortunate enough again to find the nest uncovered. A second youngster lay beside the first, and the two entirely filled the nest. They were perhaps two and a half inches long, and resembled, as said above, mere lumps of flesh. After looking at the young family, we seated ourselves a little way off to wait for ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller

... land's edge extended a wide surface of logs. Near at hand little streaks of water lay between some of them, but at a short distance the prospect was brown and uniform, until far away a narrow flash of blue marked the open river. Here and there ran the confines of the various booms included in the monster main boom. These confines consisted of ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White

... met on Cherwell's willowed side, 15 And when our destined road far onward lay, Thee I have found, whatever chance betide, The kind companion of ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles

... this Centaur, whom I slew long ago, hath slain me in turn. And now, my son, hearken unto me. Thou knowest the hill of Oeta. Carry me thither thyself, taking also such of thy friends as thou wilt have with thee. And build there a great pile of oak and wild olive, and lay me thereon, and set fire thereto. And take heed that thou shed no tear nor utter a cry, but work this deed in silence, if, indeed, thou art my true son: and if thou doest not so, my curse shall be ...
— Stories from the Greek Tragedians • Alfred Church



Words linked to "Lay" :   set, move, replace, seat, lean, poem, deposit, spawn, superimpose, situate, emplace, inclose, prepare, superpose, machinate, song, place, glycerolise, rest, lay waste to, lay reader, settle down, sign, minstrelsy, displace, place upright, prepose, lay in, dispose, ship, middle, put in, lay out, rack up, insert, lay hands on, pile, settle, sit, cram, organise, stratify, juxtapose, mislay, rebury, repose, coffin, load, underlay, lay to rest, lay over, inter, bottle, recline, appose, lay claim, posit, position, clap, snuggle, blow, reposition, install, step, lay on the line, lose, arrange, ground, verse form, lay away, thrust, parallelize, profane, perch, jar, butt, inhume, bucket, lay aside, lay-up, lay off, cock, misplace, recess, organize, ballad, lay up, lay into, ensconce, marshal, pillow, put down, put back, impose, stand up, poise



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