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''lye'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260915190735-00-⌔

lye - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

lye (countable and uncountable, plural lyes)

  • An alkaline liquid made by leaching ashes (usually wood ashes).
  • Potassium or sodium hydroxide (caustic soda).
    • ✤ She had not left the lye in too long so that the hair would fall out in clumps later.1

Verb

lye (third-person singular simple present lyes, present participle lyeing, simple past and past participle lyed)

  • To treat with lye.

Verb

lye (third-person singular simple present lyes, present participle lying, simple past lay, past participlelain or layn)

  • Obsolete spelling of lie.
    • ✤ Now negligent of sports I lye,
      And now as other Fawkners use,
      I spring a mistresse, sweare, write, sigh and weepe:
      And the game kill’d, or lost, goe talk, and sleepe.      2
    • ✤ But when his foe lyes proſtrate on the plain,
      He ſheaths his paws, uncurls his angry mane;
      And, pleas’d with bloudleſs honours of the day,
      Walks over, and diſdains th’ inglorious Prey, […]      3

Noun

lye (plural lyes)

  • Obsolete spelling of lie.
  • (UK, rail transport) A short side line, connected with the main line; a turn-out; a siding.
    • ✤ Brakevan lye. [same page in the main text] There is also an inclined lye for brakevans at each end of the yard.4

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /laɪ/
  • Audio (US): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -aɪ
  • Homophones: lie, lai, Leigh (some placenames)

Etymology 1

From Middle English leye, lye, from Old English lēah, lēag (“lye”), from Proto-West Germanic ﹡laugu, from Proto-Germanic ﹡laugō, from Proto-Indo-European ﹡lewh₃- (“to wash”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Loge, Looie (“lye”), Dutch loog (“lye”), German Low German Loge, Loje, Loog (“lye”), German Lauge (“lye”).

Compare typologically Ancient Greek ῥύμμα (rhúmma) < ῥύπτω (rhúptō, “to cleanse, to wash”); Russian м́ыло (ḿylo) (a nomen instrumenti of мыть (mytʹ)).

Etymology 2

Variant of lie (“to rest horizontally”) now used in a specialised sense; compare sett.

Printed 2026-09-15.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 2019, Namwali Serpell, The Old Drift, Hogarth, page 372: ↩

  2. 1654, John Donne, Loves Diet: ↩

  3. 1687, [John Dryden], “The Third Part”, in The Hind and the Panther. A Poem, in Three Parts, 2nd edition, London: […] Jacob Tonson […], →OCLC, page 88: ↩

  4. 1962 October, G. Freeman Allen, “The New Look in Scotland’s Northern Division—II: The new Perth marshalling yard”, in Modern Railways, page 273, photo caption with indicating arrow: ↩