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Understanding the difference between commonly confused words will help you avoid making errors in English usage. Let’s examine the difference between the following:
The words lay and lie are often confused, even by native speakers of English and professional writers. Their meanings are somewhat similar and they overlap in form. Misusing one in place of the other is one of the most common blunders in English usage.
A major source of the confusion is the fact that there are two lays: one is the base form of to lay, and the other is the past tense of to lie. Also, “laid down” sounds very much like “lay down,” adding to the potential for mistakes.
Lay and lie both have several meanings (for instance, lie can also mean to tell an untruth), but we’ll just concentrate on the ones that present the most confusion:
Lay means to put something down or put it in place; to produce and deposit.
Lie means to assume a horizontal, reclining, or resting position on a surface, or to be situated.
☛ To help you tell these words apart, remember that both lay and place contain an a, whereas both lie and recline have an i.
lay
Lay is a transitive verb, so it takes a direct object. We use lay when someone or something is being acted upon by someone or something else. So we don’t merely lay, we lay something. For instance:
The ostrich lays the largest egg of any bird.
I was finally able to lay my hands on my cell phone. When you use lay, you must specify what is being laid. In the examples above, it is an egg or my hands.
Here are the different verb tenses of lay: lay-laying-laid-laid.
Present: Ask him to lay the suitcase on the bed.
Present participle: He is laying the suitcase on the bed.
Past tense: Earlier, he laid the suitcase on the bed.
Past participle: He has laid the suitcase on the bed.
lie
Lie is an intransitive verb, so it never takes direct object; that is, it doesn’t do anything to anyone or anything, so it doesn’t need a something attached to it. We use lie when the subject itself is doing something. You can lie down, but you can’t lie something down: you lay it down.
Lie back and put your feet up: it’s been a long day.
Beyond the field lay a verdant forest.
Here are the different verb tenses of lie: lie-lying-lay-lain.
Present: If you’re tired, why don’t you lie down?.
Present participle: He’s so exhausted that he’s still lying down.
Past tense: Yesterday, he lay down for two hours in the afternoon.
Past participle: He has lain down for hours and still isn’t up.
To use both lay and lie correctly in a sentence:
You can lie down on the picnic blanket while we play badminton, but don’t lay a finger on the brownies!You could apply both lay and lie to the same thing, depending on whether the thing is being acted upon or not.
I laid the book on the table yesterday, and it’s still lying there today.Initially, the book was being acted upon or put down (laid is the past tense of lay), but now it’s just existing or resting horizontally (lying is the present participle of lie).
If you want to refer to the act of hiding or waiting in ambush, the correct terms are to lie low, and lie in wait, not to “lay low.” Confusingly, the phrase lay of the land, meaning the current situation, is written that way in American English but lie of the land in British English.
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