lay

To place down in a position of rest, or in a horizontal position.

to lay a book on the table; to lay a body in the grave

A shower of rain lays the dust.

To cause to subside or abate.

The cloudes, as things affrayd, before him flye; / But all so soone as his outrageous powre / Is layd, they fiercely then begin to shoure […]

But how upon the winds being laid, doth the ship cease to move?

To prepare (a plan, project etc.); to set out, establish (a law, principle).

Even when I lay a long plan, it is never in the expectation that I will live to see it fulfilled.

To install certain building materials, laying one thing on top of another.

lay brick; lay flooring

To produce and deposit (an egg or eggs).

The hen laid an egg.

Did dinosaurs lay their eggs in a nest?

Arrangement or relationship; layout.

He spoke of a flower or tree in each of the fifteen poems. A simple shape, a color, the design of a hedge, the lay of a limb inspired him in these songs to and about his loves.

the lay of the land

A share of the profits in a business.

While the Pequod lay at Nantucket, Peleg put Ishmael down for the three hundredth lay.

I was already aware that in the whaling business they paid no wages; but all hands, including the captain, received certain shares of the profits called lays, and that these lays were proportioned to the degree of importance pertaining to the respective duties of the ship’s company.

The direction a rope is twisted.

Worm and parcel with the lay; turn and serve the other way.

A casual sexual partner.

Over the years she'd tried to tell himself that his uptown girl was just another lay.

To find a place like that and be discreet about it, Jones figured he needed help, so he went to see his favorite lay, Juan Carillo's woman, Carmen.

An act of sexual intercourse.

Listening to this dismissal of his work, [Tennessee] Williams thought to himself of Wilder, “This character has never had a good lay.”

Does his make-up in his room Douse himself with cheap perfume Eyeholes in a paper bag Greatest lay I ever had

A lake.