Past tense of lay
irregular verb
The past tense of lay is laid. The past participle is also laid.
Forms of lay
| Base form (V1) | lay /leɪ/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | laid /leɪd/ |
| Past participle (V3) | laid /leɪd/ |
| Present participle | laying /ˈleɪ.ɪŋ/ |
| Third person singular | lays /leɪz/ |
Laid in a sentence
- The hen laid an egg.
- He laid a hundred guineas with the laird of Slofferfield that he would drive four horses through the Slofferfield loch, and in the prank he had his bit chariot dung to pieces and a good mare killed.1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide
- He got a jump on the day because he had laid out everything the night before.From the entry jump
- Those little wriggling worms are the larvae of flies who laid eggs here.From the entry worm
- When talking about being laid off, he has a short fuse.From the entry fuse
Meaning of lay
- verb To place down in a position of rest, or in a horizontal position.
- verb To cause to subside or abate.
- verb To compel a supernatural entity to cease haunting a place, often by ritual or prayer; to exorcise or banish (a spirit or ghost).
Verbs like lay
Questions about the past tense of lay
- What is the past tense of lay?
- The past tense of lay is laid.
- What is the past participle of lay?
- The past participle of lay is laid.
- Is lay a regular or irregular verb?
- Lay is an irregular verb: its past tense is not formed with -ed.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: lay (page history and authors) and the entries of its forms. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws left out forms marked obsolete, archaic, rare or dialectal and added the examples. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “Past tense of lay.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/lay. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.