Word.ws English Dictionary

by the lay

by the lay prepositional phrase: paid a portion of any profits from the voyage, rather than receiving wages.

Prepositional phrase

  1. Paid a portion of any profits from the voyage, rather than receiving wages.
    • Sailors on whaling ships were traditionally shipped by the lay.

Questions about by the lay

What does by the lay mean?
By the lay means paid a portion of any profits from the voyage, rather than receiving wages.
What part of speech is by the lay?
By the lay is a prepositional phrase.

Words near by the lay in the dictionary

  1. by the Grace of God
  2. by the holy poker
  3. by the immortal powers
  4. by the job
  5. by the laws
  6. by the lay
  7. by the living jingo
  8. by the looks of things
  9. by the minute
  10. by the moment
  11. by the name of

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: by the lay (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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