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Lye

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lye¹

  • /laɪ/

Sounds like lie, lai, Leigh (some placenames) · Rhymes with -aɪ

Where it comes from

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)).

noun lyes

  1. countable, uncountable An alkaline liquid made by leaching ashes (usually wood ashes).
  2. countable, uncountable 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.

verb lyes · lyeing · lyed

  1. To treat with lye.

lye²

  • /laɪ/

Sounds like lie, lai, Leigh (some placenames) · Rhymes with -aɪ

Where it comes from

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

verb lyes · lying · lay · lain · layn

  1. obsolete Obsolete spelling of lie.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.

noun lyes

  1. obsolete Obsolete spelling of lie.lie
  2. UK 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.

Lye³

proper noun

  1. A suburban area in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, West Midlands, England (OS grid ref SO9284).
  2. rare A diminutive of the female given name Lyanna.

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