lay-up

or lay·up

[ ley-uhp ]

noun
  1. Basketball. a shot with one hand from a point close to the basket, in which a player shoots the ball toward the basket, often off the backboard.

  2. the operation of assembling veneers for pressing into plywood.

  1. the operation of applying alternate layers of material and a binder to form a bonded material.

Origin of lay-up

1
First recorded in 1940–45; noun use of verb phrase lay up

Words Nearby lay-up

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use lay-up in a sentence

  • The result: Birds lay up to three or four times as many eggs as in nature.

    9 Reasons to Beware Eggs | The Daily Beast | August 20, 2010 | THE DAILY BEAST
  • He shall come into Aiath, he shall pass into Magron: at Machmas he shall lay up his carriages.

  • Some money I do and can lay up, but not much, being worth now above L700, besides goods of all sorts.

  • If I can persuade him to store his autos and lay up his yacht and sell off his polo ponies—I'll try it, anyhow.

    The Wreckers | Francis Lynde
  • If no one was to lay up money, there would be no one to pay for work, yet toil was considered to be a duty.

  • He does it just as men lay away money for ‘a rainy day,’ as we say, and as squirrels lay up a store of nuts for the cold weather.

    Every Girl's Book | George F. Butler

British Dictionary definitions for lay up

lay up

verb(tr, adverb)
  1. to store or reserve for future use

  2. (usually passive) informal to incapacitate or confine through illness

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Idioms and Phrases with lay-up

lay-up

see laid up; lay in.

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.