lays

Noun

lay (countable and uncountable, plural lays)

1. Arrangement or relationship; layout.
   • He spoke of a flower or tree in each of the fifteen poems. A simple shape, a color, the design of a hedge, the lay of a limb inspired him in these songs to and about his loves.1977 August 20, Jim Marko, “Building A Gay Culture—An Evening of Poetry and Theatre”, in Gay Community News, volume 5, number 7, page 16
2. A share of the profits in a business.
   • While the Pequod lay at Nantucket, Peleg put Ishmael down for the three hundredth lay.
3. The direction a rope is twisted.
   • Worm and parcel with the lay; turn and serve the other way.
4. (colloquial) A casual sexual partner.
   • Over the years she'd tried to tell himself that his uptown girl was just another lay.1996, JoAnn Ross, Southern Comforts, MIRA, published 1996, →ISBN, page 166
5. (colloquial) An act of sexual intercourse.
   • Listening to this dismissal of his work, [Tennessee] Williams thought to himself of Wilder, “This character has never had a good lay.”1993, David Halberstam, The Fifties, Open Road Integrated Media, published 2012, →ISBN
6. (archaic, slang) A place or activity where someone spends a significant portion of their time.
   • I shall be on that lay nae mair1818 July 25, Jedediah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], Tales of My Landlord, Second Series, […] (The Heart of Mid-Lothian), volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh: […] [James...

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