Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun See lea.
  • An obsolete form of lay.
  • noun Yield; produce; assay-value.
  • noun An obsolete or dialectal form of lea, lay, and lye.
  • noun Ley in this spelling (see lea) is used specifically of a plantation of grasses or other plants grown for their herbage (clovers, etc.), to serve either as meadow or as pasture. Leys are planned for one or a few years or for permanency, their composition being governed accordingly.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Grass or meadow land; a lea.
  • noun See lye.
  • adjective obsolete Fallow; unseeded.
  • verb obsolete To lay; to wager.
  • noun Law.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Alternative spelling of lea.
  • adjective obsolete fallow; unseeded

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a field covered with grass or herbage and suitable for grazing by livestock

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word ley.

Examples

  • It had discharged a pellucid fluid, which she called a ley-water, daily for fourteen years, with a great deal of pain; on which account she applied to a surgeon, who, by means of bandage and a saturnine application, soon healed the sore, unheedful of the consequences.

    Zoonomia, Vol. II Or, the Laws of Organic Life Erasmus Darwin 1766

  • Even as she spoke, the hair at the nape of my neck prickled; she was calling the ley again.

    Arcane Circle Linda Robertson 2011

  • Even as she spoke, the hair at the nape of my neck prickled; she was calling the ley again.

    Arcane Circle Linda Robertson 2011

  • Even as she spoke, the hair at the nape of my neck prickled; she was calling the ley again.

    Arcane Circle Linda Robertson 2011

  • Actually, Tyler said his dad was going to check out something called ley lines, spelled l-e-y.

    Slayed Amanda Marrone 2010

  • Experimentally, he moved to one of the little runnels collecting the flow - nowhere near large enough to be called a ley-line - and sensed the pressure increase when he interposed himself in the flow.

    Owlsight Lackey, Mercedes 1998

  • Continuing for about three hundred paces farther along the val­ley, which is in this part about one hundred and fifty feet in breadth; several small tombs are met with on both sides of the rivulet, excavated in the rock, without any ornaments.

    Travels in Syria and the Holy Land 1822

  • Continuing for about three hundred paces farther along the val­ley, which is in this part about one hundred and fifty feet in breadth; several small tombs are met with on both sides of the rivulet, excavated in the rock, without any ornaments.

    Travels in Syria and the Holy Land 1822

  • People in our community have even produced a copy of the "ley" that applies to this situation, but to no avail.

    auto permits 2001

  • People in our community have even produced a copy of the "ley" that applies to this situation, but to no avail.

    auto permits 2001

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • "I had not been seriously troubled by moles till last winter, when they invaded a seven-acre field I had just put down to a long ley." G.D. Adams, Shropshire, in The Countryman, Autumn 1955, p.137

    November 6, 2009

  • There's always cosmetic surgery.

    November 6, 2009

  • Moles are vicious bastards aren't they. Terrifying if you think about them.

    November 7, 2009