Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A man who is not a cleric.
- n. A man who is a nonprofessional: His is just the layman's view of medicine. See Usage Note at man.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. An unprofessional man; a man belonging to the laity or general mass of people, as distinguished from members of the professions of divinity, law, and medicine; specifically, one who does not belong to the clerical profession; more particularly, a church-member who is not a clergyman: also sometimes applied to persons with reference to any other profession or occupation in which they are not expert.
- n. Same as lay-figure, 1.
Wiktionary
- n. layperson, someone who is not an ordained cleric or member of the clergy
- n. by analogy, someone who is not a professional in a given field
- n. a common person
- n. a person who is untrained or lacks knowledge of a subject
- n. a generally ignorant person
- n. lay-sister or lay-brother, person received into a convent of monks, following the vows, but not being member of the order
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. One of the people, in distinction from the clergy; one of the laity; sometimes, a man not belonging to some particular profession, in distinction from those who do.
- n. A lay figure. See under Lay, n. (above).
WordNet 3.0
- n. someone who is not a clergyman or a professional person
Etymologies
- From Middle English lay + man (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Probably took hand in more constitutional questions than anybody in history, and you'll find his decisions always had what I call layman's language in part of them, so they'd understand it.”
“Now, Gentlemen, if our layman is a stockholder, he may figure something like this”
“Thank you for you well thought out and considered reply, I have taken in most of the posts here and elsewhere and the only conclusion I can come to as a layman is “shrug””
“In debate this is called "dropping the argument"; in layman's terms, it means that if you don't address it, you have conceded that your opponent is correct.”
Tom McIntyre Explains His Picks for our 2009 Hunting and Fishing Heroes and Villians Face-Off
“And that's how we did it, in layman's terms, without getting into the technical aspects of it too deeply.”
“My sense, talking to my friend, though, is that what these guys actually do is so far above anything that is put in layman's terms for my benefit as to almost be an entirely different discipline!”
“Media types: essentially the MIME type that the service provides, as defined by RFC-2046 (in layman terms: photos, videos, text, etc).”
“The best advice is to say what's important first, speak in layman's terms, & just get the word out!”
“Before 2004, you just didn't see many dedicated online review sites and I believe readers were hungry for learning more about the "next big thing" and they wanted it spelled out in layman's terms with short reviews that focused more on plot summary and personal opinions than on a thematic exploration that was then the norm in professional reviews.”
MIND MELD: How Have Online Book Reviews Affected the Publishing World?
“The Imam and a woman who he identified as "his boss" meaning she was a layman from the mosque congregation, fielded the questions.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘layman’.
-
GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
-
INTERP - sexist language
Problematic and recommended terms according to the EP's guide on gender neutral language use
gender-neutral la..., biased, discriminatory, demeaning, political correct..., gender equality, gender neutrality, sexist language, masculine gender, inclusive form, generic form, discriminate agai... and 103 more...
-
GRE
predilection, explicit, appeal, supplication, appealing, enchanting, ovation, pertinent, apropos, opportunely, applicable, germane and 381 more...
-
Unneutered
These politically incorrect words for people contain the element 'man', 'son', or 'boy'.
parson, person, layman, businessman, clergyman, chairman, cameraman, craftsman, craftsmanship, fireman, fisherman, gunman and 50 more...
-
Man
Everything that contains a man in it
taxman, salesman, common man, spaceman, neolithic man, straw man, seaman, fireman, spiderman, overman, old man, con man and 373 more...
-
dyy's Words
ambivalence, irony, double-edged sword, paradox, struggle, plunge, buoy, pigeon-hole, ultimately, status quo, fuel, undermine and 230 more...
-
Revised GRE Wordlist_2013
Vocabulary building for my quest of GRE 2013
ephemeral, esoteric, rhetoric, censure, egregious, pittance, dupe, mulct, paucity, alacrity, maintain, laconic and 997 more...
-
New Words
smarmy, purge, linger, shimmer, fiercely, frantically, shove, grunt, errand, clench, wriggle, squeeze and 168 more...
-
ash
ash
abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abide, abject, abjure and 4874 more...
-
Permutations
There are 17576 different sequences of three letters (26 x 26 x 26). How many of them occur in words? General rules of engagement: mononyms only, lower case preferred to upper case, short preferred...
aaargh, niqaabi, Isaac, raad, baaed, haaf, laager, aah, kamaaina, Naajaat, aak, aalii and 637 more...
-
Watchmen (2009)
Words from 2009 'Watchmen' film.
adversary, certitude, deterrent, stockpile, posturing, minuteman, vigilante, toss, flip, spook, carcass, tread and 174 more...
-
Lingoooo
incantation, strident, vivacious, objective, fundamentalist, infallible, vicarious, tautology, solipsism, scanty, totalitarian, masochism and 46 more...
-
Duo3.0
aptitude, doctrine, lean on, renown, eminent, trail, perplexity, bewilderment, ardent, zealous, foyer, obstruct and 81 more...
-
Others
yeoman, beefeater, amiable, obedient, meek, shrew, pliant, malleable, fiery, furnace, tribulation, sermon and 32 more...
-
Vocab
apoplectic, sapphic, inception, elephantine, precede, glean, prostrate, incarnation, tribunal, ordain, normative, liturgical and 20 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for layman.
Comments
No comments yet...
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.