Word.ws English Dictionary

lays to

lays to is the third-person singular simple present indicative of lay to.

Meaning of lay to

Verb

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

  1. To turn towards the wind so that the boat stops; to remain stationary in open water or to lie to.
    • Hoisting our jib, we lay to, and in the morning found ourselves only a few miles from the island, but with such a steady wind blowing from its direction as to render it impossible for us to get back to it.1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume II, London: Macmillan and Co., page 334
  2. To try or to expend effort to achieve (something).
    • The rowing team laid to their oars.

Questions about lays to

What is lays to the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Lays to is the third-person singular simple present indicative of lay to.

Words near lays to in the dictionary

  1. lays the dust
  2. lays the groundwork
  3. lays the hammer down
  4. lays the smack down
  5. lays the table
  6. lays to
  7. lays to heart
  8. lays to rest
  9. lays tracks
  10. lays up
  11. lays up in lavender

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lays to (page history and authors); lay to (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: “lays to.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lays_to. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.