lay down one's life

verb

To give one's life, to die.

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Meanings

verblay down one's life (third-person singular simple present lays down one's life, present participle laying down one's life, simple past and past participle laid down one's life)

present singular third person lays down one's life · participle present laying down one's life · participle past laid down one's life · past laid down one's life

  1. literaryTo give one's life, to die.

    Gold was there, and get at it they would, and at any cost. Many of our fellow-passengers suffered a rude awakening, and more than one man laid down his life in the quest for gold that had taken so fierce a hold upon him.

    1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 142
    1 more example

    Only history can tell us where China will go from here. The Chinese leadership's brutal crackdown on students seeking fundamental democratic rights makes it difficult to chart the future. Those brave students who laid down their lives against the tanks of Tiananmen Square confirmed what I'd always believed: that no totalitarian society can bottle up the instinctive drive of men and women to be free, and that once you give a captive people a little freedom, they'll demand still more.

    1990, Ronald Reagan, An American Life, Pocket Books, →ISBN, pages 372–373
Cite this entry
APA

lay down one's life. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/lay%20down%20one's%20life

MLA

“lay down one's life.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/lay%20down%20one's%20life. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “lay down one's life,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/lay%20down%20one's%20life.

Source: lay down one's life on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.