Word.ws English Dictionary

lay to

lay to verb: to turn towards the wind so that the boat stops; to remain stationary in open water or to lie to. Also the simple past of lie to.

Verb

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

  1. To turn towards the wind so that the boat stops; to remain stationary in open water or to lie to.
    • Hoisting our jib, we lay to, and in the morning found ourselves only a few miles from the island, but with such a steady wind blowing from its direction as to render it impossible for us to get back to it.1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume II, London: Macmillan and Co., page 334
  2. To try or to expend effort to achieve (something).
    • The rowing team laid to their oars.

Also used as

lay to is also the simple past of lie to.

Synonyms of lay to

Forms of lay to

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

Questions about lay to

What does lay to mean?
Lay to means to turn towards the wind so that the boat stops; to remain stationary in open water or to lie to.
What part of speech is lay to?
Lay to is a verb.
What is the past tense of lay to?
The past tense of lay to is laid to.

Words near lay to in the dictionary

  1. lay the hammer down
  2. lay the pipe
  3. lay the smack down
  4. lay the table
  5. lay the wood
  6. lay to
  7. lay to heart
  8. lay to rest
  9. lay tracks
  10. lay up
  11. lay up in lavender

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lay to (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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Cite this entry: “lay to.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lay_to. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.