lay out meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

lay out

verbalso spelled lay-out

/ˌleɪ ˈaʊt/

Etymology From lay + out.

9 senses

To expend or contribute money to an expense or purchase.

She laid out hundreds of dollars to throw a great party.
[…] 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:

1 more example

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):

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

2 more examples

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:

To explain; to interpret.

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

To arrange; to design; to concoct; to think up.

1 more example

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:

To prepare a body for burial.

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

1 more example

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:

US, Colloquial To 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.
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, The Bravo of London:

Colloquial To scold or berate.

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

Colloquial To cease playing one's instrument.

Colloquial To sunbathe.

noun

Dated Dated form of layout.