laying

Verb

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

1. (transitive) 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
2. (archaic, transitive) 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

3. (transitive) 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
4. (transitive) 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
5. (transitive) To install certain building materials, laying one thing on top of another.
   • lay brick; lay flooring
6. (transitive) To produce and deposit (an egg or eggs).
   • The hen laid an egg.

See all 45 meanings of lay