layest
layest is the second-person singular simple present indicative of lay.
layest is the second-person singular simple past indicative of lie.
Meaning of lay
Verb
lay (third-person singular simple present lays, present participle laying, simple past and past participle laid)
- To place down in a position of rest, or in a horizontal position.
- to lay a book on the table; to lay a body in the grave
- To cause to subside or abate.
- The cloudes, as things affrayd, before him flye; / But all so soone as his outrageous powre / Is layd, they fiercely then begin to shoure […]1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, book II, canto viii, verse xlviii
- Synonyms:
- becalm, settle down
- To compel a supernatural entity to cease haunting a place, often by ritual or prayer; to exorcise or banish (a spirit or ghost).
- They were resolved to banish him if they could, and the spirit, who seemed to have an inkling of their design, was often heard singing in a melancholy tone:
Wae's me! wae's me!
The acorn is not yet
Fallen from the tree,
That's to grow the wood,
That's to make the cradle,
That's to rock the...1850, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, London: H.G. Bohn, page 296
- They were resolved to banish him if they could, and the spirit, who seemed to have an inkling of their design, was often heard singing in a melancholy tone:
- To prepare (a plan, project etc.); to set out, establish (a law, principle).
- Even when I lay a long plan, it is never in the expectation that I will live to see it fulfilled.2006, Clive James, North Face of Soho, Picador, published 2007, page 48
- To install certain building materials, laying one thing on top of another.
- lay brick; lay flooring
- To produce and deposit (an egg or eggs).
- The hen laid an egg.
Meaning of lie
Verb
lie (third-person singular simple present lies, present participle lying, simple past lay or (colloquial) laid, past participle lain or (colloquial) laid or (obsolete) lien)
- To rest in a horizontal position on a surface.
- The book lies on the table; the snow lies on the roof; he lies in his coffin.
- To be placed or situated.
- Ying-yang county lies 70 li southwest of the modern Teng-feng county, Honan.1988, Robin D. S. Yates, “Selected Translations”, in Washing Silk: The Life and Selected Poetry of Wei Chuang (834?-910), Harvard University Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 100
- To abide; to remain for a longer or shorter time; to be in a certain state or condition.
- to lie waste; to lie fallow; to lie open; to lie hidden; to lie grieving; to lie under one's displeasure; to lie at the mercy of the waves
- Used with in: to be or exist; to belong or pertain; to have an abiding place; to consist.
- Envy lies between beings equal in nature, though unequal in circumstances.c. 1690, Jeremy Collier, Of Envy
- Used with with: to have sexual relations with.
- And it came to passe after these things, that his masters wife cast her eyes vpon Ioseph, and shee said, Lie with me.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 39:7
- Used with on/upon: to be incumbent (on); to be the responsibility of a person.
Origin of layest
From lay + -est.
Questions about layest
- What is layest the second-person singular simple present indicative of?
- Layest is the second-person singular simple present indicative of lay.
Words near layest in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: layest (page history and authors); lay (page history and authors); lie (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: “layest.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/layest. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.