Word.ws English Dictionary

laying siege

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

Meaning of lay siege

Verb

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

  1. (intransitive) Chiefly followed by against or to: to engage in a siege; to besiege.
    • And lay siege against it, and build a fort against it, and cast a mount against it; set the camp also against it, and set battering rams against it round about.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Ezekiel 4:2
  2. (figuratively, intransitive) To attack continually over a long period.
    • They’re laying siege to all we hold dear.

Questions about laying siege

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

Words near laying siege in the dictionary

  1. laying out
  2. laying over
  3. laying pipe
  4. laying rubber
  5. laying salt on someone's tail
  6. laying siege
  7. laying some skin on
  8. laying something at the door of
  9. laying something at the feet of
  10. laying store by
  11. laying the dust

Source and license

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