What does laid mean?
Laid is chiefly the past tense and past participle of lay, the transitive verb used for putting, placing, or positioning something. It can therefore describe an action—“She laid the parcel on the table”—or function as an adjective meaning that something has been placed or is resting in a particular position. The word also appears in familiar compounds such as laid-back, meaning relaxed or informal, and laid-up, meaning temporarily unable to work or operate because of illness or injury. A central distinction in English is that one lays a thing down, but one lies or lay down when resting. Laid is consequently a compact and useful word: it can mean placed, rested, spread, or arranged, depending on context, while preserving the distinction between the act of putting something somewhere and the state of being there.
Having been placed or put down in a position; resting, spread, or arranged in a specified way.
"The ladder was laid flat against the wall."
Common in participial constructions and compounds such as laid-back and laid-up.
The past tense and past participle of lay, meaning to place, put down, arrange, or cause something to rest.
"They laid the foundation before the rain arrived."
This is the transitive past form; the corresponding intransitive past of lie is lain.
Laid is a useful double: it can mean ‘placed’ and also be the past tense of lay, the verb that puts things down.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does laid come from?
Laid developed from Middle English layen, whose earlier source was the Old English verb lecgan, meaning “to place” or “put down.” This was a causative formation associated with Old English licgan, “to lie,” and belongs to the same Germanic family as Dutch leggen and German legen. Modern English retains the irregular contrast between the transitive forms lay and laid and the intransitive forms lie and lain.
Related word forms
How laid is actually used
As the past form of lay, it is transitive and normally takes an object: she laid the book down. By contrast, lie is generally intransitive: she lay down, while she lay the book down. The adjective sense is common in expressions such as laid-back and laid-up, while the hyphen in laid-back reflects its use before a noun.
Easily confused with laid
Laid is the past tense and past participle of the transitive verb lay, meaning to place something; one lies or lay down when resting.
Lie means to rest in a position and is generally intransitive, whereas lay means to put or place something and takes an object.