Word.ws English Dictionary

laid about

laid about is the simple past and past participle of lay about.

Meaning of lay about

Verb

lay about (third-person singular simple present lays about, present participle laying about, simple past and past participle laid about)

  1. To strike blows in all directions.
    • [...] At beating quarters up, or forage, / Behaved herself with matchless courage; / And laid about in fight more busily / Than th' Amazonian Dame Penthesile.1663, Samuel Butler, Hudibras, part 1, canto 2
  2. To set about, with infinitive or gerund.
  3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see lay, about.

Questions about laid about

What is laid about the simple past and past participle of?
Laid about is the simple past and past participle of lay about.

Words near laid about in the dictionary

  1. laics
  2. laid
  3. laid a finger on
  4. laid a glove on
  5. laid a hand on
  6. laid about
  7. laid an anchor to the windward
  8. laid an egg
  9. laid aside
  10. laid at someone's door
  11. laid away

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: laid about (page history and authors); lay about (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “laid about.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/laid_about. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.