Word.ws English Dictionary

orlay

orlay noun: fate, destiny.

Noun

orlay (countable and uncountable, plural not attested)

  1. (Germanic, no plural) Fate, destiny.
    • There laws they laid, there life chose, To men's sons, and spoke orlay […]2004, Nathaniel Harris, Witcha: A Book of Cunning
    • I am fully aware of how Oaths affect my Orlay and my Wyrd. I am Oathed to no one, save the Holy Ones and my Wife.2006, An Heathen Reader: Some Thoughts on the State of Things I Think, anheathenreader.blogspot.com/.../some-thoughts-on-state-of-things-i.html

Examples of orlay in a sentence

  • You could think of your own orlay as the source or seed of your “personal wyrd.” A newborn infant initially inherits its orlay from its parents and ancestors.2009, Alaric Albertsson, Travels Through Middle Earth:
  • These deeds done within the innangard of the tribe by its tribesmen are its law, its orlay.2011, Swain Wodening, The Sacred and the Holy:
  • Remember how I wrote at the beginning of this chapter that the Norns 'shape' orlay.2021, Winifred Rose, Heathen Soul Lore Foundations:

Synonyms of orlay

8 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Origin of orlay

Learned borrowing from Old English orlæġ (“fate”), from Proto-West Germanic *oʀlag, *uʀlag, from Proto-Germanic *uzlagą (“destiny; fate”, literally “that which is laid out; out-lay; plan; design”). For more, see Old English or-, English lay.

Questions about orlay

What does orlay mean?
Orlay means fate, destiny.
How do you use orlay in a sentence?
You could think of your own orlay as the source or seed of your “personal wyrd.” A newborn infant initially inherits its orlay from its parents and ancestors.
What part of speech is orlay?
Orlay is a noun.

Words near orlay in the dictionary

  1. Orland
  2. Orland Park
  3. orlandiite
  4. Orlando
  5. Orlandoite
  6. orlay
  7. orle
  8. Orleanian
  9. Orleanism
  10. Orleans
  11. Orleans County

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: orlay (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “orlay.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/orlay. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.