lie
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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3 characters
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English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "lie", 3-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "lie" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "lie" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
lie is aEnglishverb. It means: To rest in a horizontal position on a surface. Pronounced /laɪ̯/. It ranks #1,530 in English word frequency. Often confused with Lt and lo.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | lie |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /laɪ̯/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #1,530 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for lie is 3 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /laɪ̯/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,530 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 9 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for lie in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Lt", "lo", "LP", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English lien, liggen, from Old English liċġan, from Proto-West Germanic *liggjan, from Proto-Germanic *ligjaną, from Proto-Indo-European *legʰ-. Cognates Cognate with Yola lee, lidge (“to lie”), leigh, leiough (“to idle”), North Frisian lade, la… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is lie, spelled L-I-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To rest in a horizontal position on a surface.
- 2To be placed or situated.
- 3To abide; to remain for a longer or shorter time; to be in a certain state or condition.
- 4Used with in: to be or exist; to belong or pertain; to have an abiding place; to consist.
- 5Used with with: to have sexual relations with.
- 6Used with on/upon: to be incumbent (on); to be the responsibility of a person.
- 7To lodge; to sleep.
- 8To be still or quiet, like one lying down to rest.
- 9To be sustainable; to be capable of being maintained.
Etymology
From Middle English lien, liggen, from Old English liċġan, from Proto-West Germanic *liggjan, from Proto-Germanic *ligjaną, from Proto-Indo-European *legʰ-. Cognates Cognate with Yola lee, lidge (“to lie”), leigh, leiough (“to idle”), North Frisian lade, lai, laie, lei, lii, läde, läie (“to lie; to lay”), Saterland Frisian lääse (“to lie; to lay”), West Frisian lizze (“to lie”), Alemannic German ligge (“to lie”), Central Franconian lijje (“to lie”), Dutch and Dutch Low Saxon liggen (“to lie”), German liegen (“to lie”), German Low German ligge, liggen (“to lie”), Luxembourgish leien (“to lie”), Yiddish ליגן (lign, “to lie”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål ligge (“to lie”), Faroese and Icelandic liggja (“to lie”), Norwegian Nynorsk ligge, liggja, liggje (“to lie”), Swedish ligga (“to lie”), Gothic 𐌻𐌹𐌲𐌰𐌽 (ligan, “to lie, to rest”); and with Irish laigh, luigh (“to lie”), Manx lhie (“lie; lay”), Scottish Gaelic laigh (“lie; lay”), Faliscan 𐌋𐌄𐌂𐌄𐌕 (lecet, “he lies down”), Latin lectus (“bed”), South Picene 𐌅𐌄𐌉𐌀𐌕 (veiat, “to lie”), Ancient Greek λέχομαι (lékhomai, “to lie down”), Albanian lag (“band, encampment, troop”), Belarusian ляжа́ць (ljažácʹ, “to lie”), Bulgarian лежа́ (ležá, “to lie”), Czech ležet (“to lie”), Macedonian лежи (leži, “to lie”), Polish leżeć (“to lie”), Russian лежа́ть (ležátʹ, “to lie”), Serbo-Croatian лѐжати, lèžati (“to lie”), Slovene ležáti (“to lie”), Ukrainian лежа́ти (ležáty, “to lie”), Tocharian B lyäk- (“to lie”). As a noun for position, the noun has the same etymology above as the verb.
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #1,530 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter L in our English index: