Word.ws English Dictionary

laying about

laying about is the present participle and gerund of lay about.

Meaning of lay about

Verb

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

  1. To strike blows in all directions.
    • [...] At beating quarters up, or forage, / Behaved herself with matchless courage; / And laid about in fight more busily / Than th' Amazonian Dame Penthesile.1663, Samuel Butler, Hudibras, part 1, canto 2
  2. To set about, with infinitive or gerund.
  3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see lay, about.

Questions about laying about

What is laying about the present participle and gerund of?
Laying about is the present participle and gerund of lay about.

Words near laying about in the dictionary

  1. layin'
  2. laying
  3. laying a finger on
  4. laying a glove on
  5. laying a hand on
  6. laying about
  7. laying an anchor to the windward
  8. laying an egg
  9. laying aside
  10. laying at someone's door
  11. laying away

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: laying about (page history and authors); lay about (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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