lye
/laɪ/
lye noun: an alkaline liquid made by leaching ashes (usually wood ashes). Also the obsolete spelling of lie.
Noun (1)
lye (countable and uncountable, plural lyes)
- An alkaline liquid made by leaching ashes (usually wood ashes).
- Potassium or sodium hydroxide (caustic soda).
- She had not left the lye in too long so that the hair would fall out in clumps later.2019, Namwali Serpell, The Old Drift, Hogarth, page 372
Verb
lye (third-person singular simple present lyes, present participle lyeing, simple past and past participle lyed)
- To treat with lye.
Noun (2)
lye (plural lyes)
- A short side line, connected with the main line; a turn-out; a siding.
- Brakevan lye. [same page in the main text] There is also an inclined lye for brakevans at each end of the yard.1962 October, G. Freeman Allen, “The New Look in Scotland's Northern Division—II: The new Perth marshalling yard”, in Modern Railways, page 273, photo caption with indicating arrow
Proper noun capitalized: Lye
Lye
- A suburban area in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, West Midlands, England (OS grid ref SO9284).
- A diminutive of the female given name Lyanna.
Also used as
lye is also the obsolete spelling of lie.
lye meaning in Tagalog, Indonesian, Persian and Thai
lye in Tagalog
- caustic alkaline solution
- lihiya, tilis
lye in Indonesian
- caustic alkaline solution
- lindi
lye in Persian
- caustic alkaline solution
- قلیا qaliyā
lye in Thai
- caustic alkaline solution
- ด่าง dàang
More languagesFewer languages
- lye in Vietnamese
- nước tro, nước tro tàu
Forms of lye
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | lyes |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | lyes |
| present participle | lyeing |
| past participle | lyed |
| past | lyed |
| present participle | lying |
| past | lay |
| past participle | lain |
| past participle | layn |
Origin of lye
From Middle English leye, lye, from Old English lēah, lēag (“lye”), from Proto-West Germanic *laugu, from Proto-Germanic *laugō, from Proto-Indo-European *lewh₃- (“to wash”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Loge, Looie (“lye”), Dutch loog (“lye”), German Low German Loge, Loje, Loog (“lye”), German Lauge (“lye”). Compare typologically Ancient Greek ῥύμμα (rhúmma) < ῥύπτω (rhúptō, “to cleanse, to wash”); Russian м́ыло (ḿylo) (a nomen instrumenti of мыть (mytʹ)).
Variant of lie (“to rest horizontally”) now used in a specialised sense; compare sett.
Words formed from lye
Words that rhyme with lye
Questions about lye
- What does lye mean?
- Lye means an alkaline liquid made by leaching ashes (usually wood ashes).
- What is lye in Tagalog?
- Lye in Tagalog is lihiya, tilis. See Lye meaning in Tagalog.
- What part of speech is lye?
- Lye can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce lye?
- Lye is pronounced /laɪ/.
- What is the plural of lye?
- The plural of lye is lyes.
Words near lye in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: lye (page history and authors); Lye (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vininn126-lye.wav.
Cite this entry: “lye.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lye. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.