lay out

present singular third person lays out · participle present laying out · participle past laid out · past laid out

1. transitiveTo expend or contribute money to an expense or purchase.

   She laid out hundreds of dollars to throw a great party.

   2 more examples

   […] you must endeavour to take off your Mistress from all the care you can, giving to her a just and true account of what moneys you lay out for her, shewing your self thrifty in all your disbursements.

   1677, Hannah Woolley, The Compleat Servant-Maid, London: T. Passinger, page 63

   There are but two ways of paying debt: increase of industry in raising income, increase of thrift in laying it out.

   1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “Government”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book II (The Ancient Monk)

2. transitiveTo arrange (physically) in a certain way, so as to spread or space apart; to display (e.g. merchandise or a collection).

   She laid out a terrific spread for the party.

   3 more examples

   She laid the blocks out in a circle on the floor.

   Crossing stations on single lines are laid out so that one line has a straight run through, and is signalled in each direction, avoiding the need to slow down to take the turnout into the loop.

   1954 August, J. B. Snell, “The New Zealand Government Railways—2”, in Railway Magazine, page 562

   Having laid out these big-picture figures, the report then begins its analysis of traffic types against route mileage.

   2023 March 8, Gareth Dennis, “The Reshaping of things to come...”, in RAIL, number 978, page 46

   Antonyms: pick up, pack up

3. transitiveTo explain; to interpret.

   Let me lay it out for you: you're not going to get a better opportunity than this one.

   1 more example

   Because his opinions are all over the place, they find it easy to scrutinise them and lay them out […]

   2005, Plato, translated by Lesley Brown, Sophist, 230b

4. transitiveTo arrange; to design; to concoct; to think up.

   She began to lay out how the circuits would be connected.

   2 more examples

   He began to lay out the hull for an inexpensive but fast littoral drone.

   It was about dark now; so I dropped the canoe down the river under some willows that hung over the bank, and waited for the moon to rise. I made fast to a willow; then I took a bite to eat, and by and by laid down in the canoe to smoke a pipe and lay out a plan.

   1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter VII, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC

5. To prepare a body for burial.

   They laid him out beautifully on a bier draped in satin.

   2 more examples

   So that no white sailor seriously contradicted him when he said that if ever Captain Ahab should be tranquilly laid out— which might hardly come to pass, so he muttered—then, whoever should do that last office for the dead, would find a birth-mark on him from crown to sole.

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 28, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC

   The family was alone in the parlour with the great polished box. William, when laid out, was six feet four inches long. Like a monument lay the bright brown, ponderous coffin.

   1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter 6, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC

6. UScolloquialtransitiveTo render (someone) unconscious; to knock out; to cause to fall to the floor; to kill.

   I laid him out on the sidewalk after he tried to grab me.

   1 more example

   Was it possible that this responsible mill employee had been laid out and doped and was now existing in a mentally inert state by which he became an unconscious tool in the hands of those who had the key to his position?

   1934, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], The Bravo of London

7. colloquialtransitiveTo scold or berate.

   She really laid him out for taking the money and then lying to try to cover it up.

8. colloquialintransitivejazzTo cease playing one's instrument.

   Hey man can you lay out on the bridge?

9. colloquialintransitiveTo sunbathe.

   It's been raining so much all week that I haven't had a chance to lay out.