Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(UK und.) a woman who lives with a thief.

1935

Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 6: Lie-by: Woman who cohabits with a thief.

a prison sentence.

1935		Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks n.p.: A lie-down: a remand in custody.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak 43: Cop a lie or liedown – to be sentenced to a term of imprisonment.
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 148: He says he did his lie-down quiet.

to live hard.

1655		Mercurius Fumigosus 36 31 Jan.–7 Feb. 284: Mr. Parson marrying the Widdow, would no more take tythe abroad, but lay at rack and manger at home.
1683		Fifteen Real Comforts of Matrimony 41: He lies at rack and manger, and has his full swinge of all the pleasure he is in any possibility capable of.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: To lye at Rack and Manger, to live hard.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1843		T. Carlyle Past and Present (1897) Pt II 63: A blustering, dissipated human figure [...] talking noisy nonsense; – tearing out the bowels of St. Edmundsbury Convent (its larders namely and cellars) [...] by living at rack and manger there.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor III 253/2: They may get to like it overmuch, as you say, and one’s bit of a house may go to rack and manger.

see let out her fore-room and lie backwards under fore-room n.

to remain hidden and quiet, just like a stalking dog; thus WW1 doggo, quiet, motionless.

1882		Society 7 Oct. 23/1: To-day’s meet of the London Athletic Club will be remarkable for the resurrection of E. L. Lockton after lying ‘doggoh’ some time.
1886		Sporting Times 10 Apr. 4/4: Either your case has not been reported, or you are doing the biggest doggoh on record.
1893		Kipling Many Inventions 259: I wud lie most powerful doggo whin I heard a shot.
1900		Western Mail 8 Jan. 6/5: Very much ‘doggo’, or lie-low, brer rabbit, kept the Dutchmen. Not a word or shot did they return.
1900		Morn. Post (London) 6 Apr. 8/1: I do not think we will go for any other position under cover of dark. Our notion is to lie very ‘doggo’ indeed.
1903		A. Binstead Pitcher in Paradise 114: That’s how it comes about that he is lying doggoh in my bedroom at this moment.
1911		Gem 23 Sept. iv: He would rather have been smashed to pieces in an accident, or lain doggo till the crack of dawn.
1916		Day Book (Chicago) 17 May 7/2: The people from across the Alleghanies will go back home [...] humbled and playing dog-go.
1916		Dundee Courier 13 Mar. 6/6: The Turk [...] was not skulking [...] He was by no means ‘doggo’.
1920		‘Sapper’ Bulldog Drummond 188: Unnoticed, he lay ‘doggo’ for a while.
1923		P. MacGill Moleskin Joe 198: She ran to the curtain and spoke through the slit. ‘You’re to keep quiet, navvy!’ ‘Doggo as a bag of cement!’ came the voice from the recess.
1929		Gloucs. Citizen 20 Apr. 6/5: No matter what would be their fate they would not play a ‘doggo’ game.
1932		(con. WWI) L. Mann Flesh in Armour 259: ‘That quiet city — quiet, as if it was lying doggo’.
1934		D.L. Sayers Nine Tailors (1984) 244: The third night he was out there lying doggo in a wood somewhere.
1936		Gloucs. Echo 4 July 6/1: Sheffield played ‘doggo’ for half-an-hour without scoring.
1940		O. Strange Sudden Takes the Trail 122: Awright, Pinto, we’ll lie doggo till the Bar O is feelin’ easy again.
1944		S. Horler Lady with the Limp 161: We shall all have to lie doggo until then because of the odds.
1947		D. Davin For the Rest of Our Lives 327: I lay doggo and they missed me.
1958		(con. 1950) E. Frankel Band of Brothers 117: Nobody fire unless I give the word. We’ll try to play doggo.
1958		A. Buckeridge Jennings’ Little Hut 209: I vote we lie doggo and wait till he gives himself away.
1959		A. Sillitoe ‘Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner’ in Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (1960) 27: We’ll keep it doggo for a week or two.
1961		‘Frank Richards’ Billy Bunter at Butlins 23: It was quite a bright idea to take cover behind that massive trunk, and keep ‘doggo’ there.
1965		T.B. Haber ‘Canine Terms Applied to Human Beings’ in AS XL:2 96: lie doggo. Not to stir from one’s position.
1972		(con. 1916) G. Swarthout Tin Lizzie Troop (1978) 198: Not a cough, not an itch, lie doggo and stay doggo.
1987		(con. 1930s) L. Redmond Emerald Square 194: Jem lay doggo in the ditch.
2000		Guardian G2 14 Mar. 22: It might be Monica, Tyrone’s greyhound, who has been lying doggo lately.
2007		B. Reed ‘The Meat Axe by the Kitchen Door’ in Passing Strange (2015) 13: He’s been lying doggo all day [...] on the couch in the TV lounge [...] making like all he’s doing is watching the box.
2018		(con. 1974) Guardian 17 Aug. 3/2: Lucan said he was going to ‘lie doggo’ for a while.

1. see lay down v. (1a)

2. see lay down v. (3)

see lay down (on one’s/the job) under lay down v.

see lay (up) in lavender v. (4)

of a man, to lie in bed with two or three women.

1612		Dekker ‘Canting Song’ O per se O O3: Store of Stroommell weele have here, and i’th skipper Lib in state.
1637		Dekker ‘Canting Song’ in Eng. Villainies (8th edn) [as cit. 1612].
1764		Bloody Register III 81: This evidence being asked, if he knew what lying in state was? she declined to answer, was pressed to it, upon which she replied, that she had indeed heard from vulgar people, that it was for a man to lie with three women at once.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: To lie in state, a man in bed with three harlots.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

see lay low v.

to have sexual intercourse, of a woman, lie under.

1533		J. Heywood A Merry Play in Farmer (1905) 78: She and I be sometime aloft, / And I do lie upon her, many a time and oft, / To prove her, yet I could never espy / That ever any did worse with her than I.
1632		T. Nabbes Covent Garden I ii: If my Master chance to lie at your house, I should be glad to if I might lie over your Daughter.
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 183: One is the son of lycaon, / T’other of him that us’d to lay on / The goddess venus.
1832		Satirist (London) 17 June 191/2: Her spouse then, else we wonder, / Will rescue her from the dis-Grace, Which she, 'tis said, lies under.

to drink very heavily until one collapses.

1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.
1928		R. Carr Rampant Age 133: The sorta fellow who loves to spend all his spare time [...] bummin’ cigarettes and layin’ on his ear drunker’n a petrified hog.

(Ulster) to play truant.

1939

P. Gallagher My Story 13: I went to Roshine school when I was about seven years. I was not very good at school, although I never ‘lay out’ for a day.

to go to sleep without first removing one’s clothes.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: To lie Rough, in one’s Clothes all Night.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1933		Western Morn. News 27 Feb. 3/6: The Master [i.e. of the Workhouse] said 81 men were admitted during the previous week-end. They had to ‘lie rough’.

see lay low v.

see lay up v. (4)