Word.ws English Dictionary

lay of the land

lay of the land noun: the physical characteristics of the terrain or surrounding natural environment.

Noun

lay of the land

  1. (idiomatic) The physical characteristics of the terrain or surrounding natural environment.
    • I did not know the exact route, but steered by the lay of the land, as I do in Boston.1857, Henry David Thoreau, chapter 1, in Canoeing In The Wilderness
    • He noted well the locality, the trees, and the lay of the land.1910, Joseph A. Altsheler, chapter 9, in The Riflemen of the Ohio
  2. (idiomatic) The trends, feelings, intentions, and other factors influencing a strategic, political, or social situation.
    • I'll feel the pulse of my friends and yours, and when we get the lay of the land, the affair can be accomplished much more easily.1901, Charles W. Chesnutt, chapter 17, in The Marrow of Tradition
    • "Now look here, Mary," he said, "I've been expecting you. I warn you before you begin that I cannot sanction your marriage to a Protestant."
      "Oh, but I'm going to convart him!" cried Mary so quickly that the priest laughed harder than ever.
      "So that's the lay of the land!" he chuckled. "Well, if...1907, Gene Stratton-Porter, chapter 11, in At the Foot of the Rainbow

Examples of lay of the land in a sentence

  • Because he knew the lay of the land, he could run faster in the darkness than his pursuer.1919, Upton Sinclair, chapter 10, in Jimmie Higgins […], Pasadena, Calif.: Upton Sinclair, →OCLC:
  • Hale smiled inwardly, for he thought he could already see the lay of the land, and he wondered that, at such an age, such fierceness could be.1908, John Fox Jr., chapter 4, in The Trail of the Lonesome Pine:
  • Slava Tsukerman is a Soviet émigré who has lived in New York City since 1976, apparently long enough for him to get the lay of the land.1983 July 22, Janet Maslin, “‘Liquid Sky,’ High Fashion and a U.F.O.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
  • McCain: I want to see what the lay of the land is after the November elections.2002 March 29, Douglas Waller, “McCain: After Finance Reform, What?”, in Time:

Synonyms of lay of the land

Questions about lay of the land

What does lay of the land mean?
Lay of the land means the physical characteristics of the terrain or surrounding natural environment.
How do you use lay of the land in a sentence?
Because he knew the lay of the land, he could run faster in the darkness than his pursuer.
What part of speech is lay of the land?
Lay of the land is a noun.

Words near lay of the land in the dictionary

  1. lay judges
  2. lay lord
  3. lay lords
  4. lay low
  5. lay odds
  6. lay of the land
  7. lay off
  8. lay on
  9. lay on the line
  10. lay on the oars
  11. lay on with a trowel

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lay of the land (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-lay of the land.ogg.

Cite this entry: “lay of the land.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lay_of_the_land. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.