Layed or laid – which form is correct?
Layed or laid? Which form is correct? If your boss decides to let you go, you are layed or laid off? You eat eggs that have been layed or laid by a hen? If your teacher has stressed a good spelling strongly, you could say that a great stress on good spelling has been layed or laid? Read this article for the answers!
Layed or laid? – which one is correct?
It turns out that both of these forms have been acceptable at some point in the English language, but nowadays there is only one correct spelling in all contexts and it is laid. Carry on reading for more details.
Layed or laid – what is the difference?
Laid is the past tense and past participle of the verb to lay which is one of irregular verbs that do not follow the typical past tense spelling pattern. Meanwhile, layed used to function as the past tense and past participle of lay but has fallen out of use and now is an archaic term considered to be a misspelling.
Laid – the meaning
As explained above, laid is the past tense and past participle of the verb lay. It is one of these words in English that have a lot of different meanings, and one of its most common uses refers to setting something down or putting it in a horizontal position.
He laid the newspaper on the table.
You can find some other meanings of lay below.
- to cover something with a layer of something
The tomatoes were laid on racks to dry.
- to prepare something in detail
The weather can change even the best-laid plans
- to produce eggs from out of the body
new-laid eggs
- to place a bet
He laid a bet on the horse that has come first in all the previous races
- to have sex with someone:
So did you get laid last night?
- to express a claim, legal statement, etc. in a serious or official way:
The bill was laid before Parliament.
- to prepare something in detail
to lay a responsibility/burden on somebody
- to put somebody/something in a particular position or state, especially a difficult or unpleasant one
to lay a responsibility/burden on somebody
- used with a noun to form a phrase that has the same meaning as the verb related to the noun
to lay the blame on somebody (= to blame somebody)
Layed or laid? More examples from the literature and press
Raking some dead leaves into a pile, she picked Little Ann up and laid her in them.
Wilson Rawls, Where the Red Fern Grows
At Tuesday’s meeting, board member Karl Frisch asked how long it would take to implement all of the recommendations laid out in the report.
“Washington Post”, Oct 4, 2022
This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics goes to scientists from France, the United States, and Austria whose work laid the foundation for quantum cryptography and quantum computing.
“Science Magazine”, Oct 4, 2022
Welcome, it seemed to say as I laid my eyes upon it for the first time.
Leanne Statland Ellis, The Ugly One
