lay down
"lay-down" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“lay down” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To give up, surrender, or yield (e.g. a weapon), usually by placing it on the ground.
Corpus desk
Index EN-lay-down · lay down · English
lay down · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "L" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | lay down |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 8 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “lay down” in English
Rare enough to double-check
lay down is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 11 senses are on record.
No generated misspelling entries exist for lay down in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English leyen doun, leien doun (“to lay down”), equivalent to lay + down. The correct English form is lay down, spelled L-A-Y- -D-O-W-N.
Definition
- 1To give up, surrender, or yield (e.g. a weapon), usually by placing it on the ground.
- 2To place on the ground, e.g. a railway on a trackbed.
- 3To intentionally take a fall while riding a motorcycle, in order to prevent a more serious collision.
- 4To specify, institute, enact, assert firmly, state authoritatively, establish or formulate (rules or policies).
- 5To stock, store (e.g. wine) for the future. See also lay by.
- 6To kill (someone).
- 7To euthanize an animal.
- 8To sacrifice, especially in the phrase "to lay down one's life."
- 9To lie down.
- 10To draw the lines of a ship's hull at full size, before starting a build.
- 11To place a sheet in a printing press for printing.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how lay down appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The police urged the gunman to lay down his weapon.
Lay down your arms.
Etymology
From Middle English leyen doun, leien doun (“to lay down”), equivalent to lay + down.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.