Word.ws English Dictionary

lay back

lay back verb: to lie down on one's back; to lie back. Also the simple past of lie back.

Verb

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

  1. (intransitive, proscribed) To lie down on one's back; to lie back.
  2. (informal, transitive) To relax, such as on vacation; to do nothing for a period of time.
    • I can't wait to lay back on the beach.
    • He laid back to get through his prison sentence.
  3. (transitive) To make a short backward pass to a teammate in an attacking position.
    • The ball ran loose to Sheringham and whereas less experienced players might have tried to score from a difficult angle he laid it back to Benayoun, whose shot was blocked by Curtis Davies.2005 November 7, David Lacey, “Sheringham's veteran vision shows up the big problem with West Brom”, in The Guardian

Also used as

lay back is also the simple past of lie back.

Forms of lay back

third-person singular presentlays back
present participlelaying back
past participlelaid back
pastlaid back

Questions about lay back

What does lay back mean?
Lay back means to lie down on one's back; to lie back.
What part of speech is lay back?
Lay back is a verb.
What is the past tense of lay back?
The past tense of lay back is laid back.

Words near lay back in the dictionary

  1. lay around
  2. lay aside
  3. lay at someone's door
  4. lay at someone's heart
  5. lay away
  6. lay back
  7. lay back and thought of England
  8. lay bare
  9. lay bare one's soul
  10. lay before
  11. lay behind

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lay back (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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