Emily Dickinson Lexicon

LAY'ER, n. [la'er. from lay, the verb.]

1. A stratum; a bed; a body spread over another; as, a layer of clay or of sand.
2. A shoot or twig of a plant, not detached from the stock, laid under ground for growth or propagation. – Encyc.
3. A hen that lays eggs. – Mortimer.

LAY'ING, ppr.

Putting; placing; applying; imputing; wagering.

LAY'LAND, n.

Land lying untilled; fallow ground. [Local.]

LAY'-MAN, n. [la'man. lay and man. Old Eng. lewdeman. Selden.]

1. A man who is not a clergyman; one of the laity or people, distinct from the clergy. – Dryden. Swift.
2. An image used by painters is contriving attitudes. – Dryden.
3. A lay-clerk.

LAY'-STALL, n. [lay and stall.]

A heap of dung, or a place where dung is laid. – Ash.

LA'ZAR, n. [from Lazarus; Sp. lazaro.]

A person infected with nauseous and pestilential disease. – Shak. Dryden.

LAZ-A-RET', or LAZ-A-RET'TO, n. [Sp. lazareto; It. lazzeretto; Fr. lazaret, from Lazarus.]

A public building, hospital or pest-house for the reception of diseased persons, particularly for those affected with contagious distempers.

LA'ZAR-HOUSE, n.

A lazaretto; also, a hospital for quarantine.

LA'ZAR-LIKE, or LA'ZAR-LY, a.

Full of sores; leprous. – Bp. Hall.

LAZ'A-RO-NI, n.

In Italy, the poor, who live by begging, or have no permanent habitation.

LA'ZAR-WORT, or LA'SERWORT, n.

The popular English name of some species of Laserpitium, a genus of plants of several species, natives of Germany, Italy, France, &c.

LAZE, v.i.

To live in idleness. [Vulgar.]

LAZE, v.t.

To waste in sloth. [Vulgar.]

LA'ZI-LY, adv. [from lazy.]

In a heavy, sluggish manner; sluggishly. Whether he lazily and listlessly dreams away his time. – Locke.

LA'ZI-NESS, n. [from lazy.]

1. The state or quality of being lazy; indisposition to action or exertion; indolence; sluggishness; heaviness in motion; habitual sloth. Laziness differs from idleness; the latter being a mere defect or cessation of action, but laziness is sloth, with natural or habitual disinclination to action. Laziness travels so slowly, that poverty soon overtakes him. – Franklin.
2. Slowness; tardiness.

LAZ'ING, a.

Spending time in sluggish inaction. – L'Estrange. [This is an ill-formed, inelegant word.]

LAZ'U-LI, n.

Lapis Lazuli is a mineral of a fine, azure blue color, usually amorphous, or in rounded masses of a moderate size. It is often marked by yellow spots or veins of sulphuret of iron, and is much valued for ornamental work. It is distinguished from lazulite, by the intenseness of its color. [Qu. Ar. azul.] – Cleaveland.

LAZ'U-LITE, n.

A mineral of a light, indigo blue color, occurring in small masses, or crystalized in oblique four-sided prisms. – Cleaveland.

LA'ZY, a. [G. lass, lässig; W. llesg. The Fr. lâche is from L. laxus, and it is doubtful whether this is of the same family.]

1. Disinclined to action or exertion; naturally or habitually slothful; sluggish; indolent; averse to labor; heavy in motion. Wicked men will ever live like rogues, and not fall to work, but be lazy and spend victuals. – Bacon.
2. Slow; moving slowly or apparently with labor; as, a lazy stream. The night-owl's lazy flight. – Shak.

LD, n. [stands for Lord.]

LEA, or LEY, n. [See Lay.]

A meadow or plain. The Welsh write lle, but as this word is from the root of lay, the latter is the more correct orthography.

LEACH, n.

A quantity of wood ashes, through which woe passes, and thus imbibes the alkali.

LEACH, v.t. [Sw. laka, to fall in drops, to distill; läka, to leak; Dan. lekker, to drop, to leak. See Leak. Perhaps L. lix may be from the same root.]

To wash, as ashes, by percolation, or causing water to pass through them, and thus to separate from them the alkali. The water thus charged with alkali, is called lye.

LEACH'-TUB, n.

A wooden vessel or tub in which ashes are leached. It is sometimes written letch-tub.

LEAD, n.¹ [led.; Sax. læd; G. loth; D. lood; Dan. and Sw. lod; Russ. lot, probably a mass, like clod.]

1. A metal of a dull white color, with a cast of blue. It the least elastic and sonorous of all the metals, and at the same time it is soft and easily fusible. It is found native in small masses, but generally mineralized by sulphur, and sometimes by other substances. Lead fused in a strong heat, throws off vapors which are unwholesome.
2. A plummet or mass of lead, used in sounding at sea.
3. Leads, a flat roof covered with lead. – Shak. Bacon. White lead, the oxyd of lead, ground with one-third part of chalk. – Fourcroy.