Word.ws English Dictionary

lain in wait

lain in wait is the past participle of lie in wait.

Meaning of lie in wait

Verb

lie in wait (third-person singular simple present lies in wait, present participle lying in wait, simple past lay in wait, past participle lain in wait)

  1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To be hiding, waiting to ambush or attack someone, or simply to accost them unexpectedly.
    • Nothing impressed me, so much, in my visits here (which were pretty numerous) as the uncommonly hard and cruel character of the audience, who resent the slightest defect, take nothing good-humouredly, seem to be always lying in wait for an opportunity to hiss, and spare the actresses as little as...1846, Charles Dickens, “Genoa and Its Neighbourhood”, in Pictures from Italy, London: […] Bradbury & Evans, […], →OCLC, page 67
    Synonyms:
    waylay

Questions about lain in wait

What is lain in wait the past participle of?
Lain in wait is the past participle of lie in wait.

Words near lain in wait in the dictionary

  1. lain in one's throat
  2. lain in repose
  3. lain in state
  4. lain in the bed one had made
  5. lain in the way
  6. lain in wait
  7. lain low
  8. lain off
  9. lain on the oars
  10. lain over
  11. lain rough

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lain in wait (page history and authors); lie in wait (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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