Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) (US) to defeat or overcome; often as lay out cold

1885		D.D. Porter Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War 174: Old Tecumseh and myself hold on, two tough old knots, with quite enough vitality to lay out any number of those who pride themselves on what they can do.
1910		Wodehouse Psmith in the City (1993) 47: Yelling ‘Buck up Cottagers!’ or ‘Lay ’em out, Pensioners!’.
1922		T.E. Spencer ‘Football at Gulligalore’ in Budgeree Ballads 102: Then Tim, in his turn, got laid out by McCoy, / And McCoy got his nose broke by Paddy O’Hare.
1951		D. Dressler Parole Chief 11: In quiet, courteous tones [he] laid him out forty ways for Sunday.
1959		E. De Roo Go, Man, Go! 14: Now that you’ve laid me out, when you gonna bury me?

(b) (US) to kill.

1874		‘English Sl.’ in Eve. Telegram (N.Y.) 9 Dec. 1/5: Let us present a few specimens:– [...] ‘Lay him out’ (a murderous phrase in use among the ‘Rattle Row Gang’).
1901		Marvel XV:373 Jan. 10: My opinion aire that he hev laid out his pards fer some reason.
1916		‘Taffrail’ Pincher Martin 337: I gits rated up ten days ago, [...] death vacancy. Poor ole Byles got laid out, yer remember.
1930		J. Lait Put on the Spot 20: I laid out better men ’n him before you was born.
1960		Mad mag. Dec. 25: Ed McSweeney was laid out for good, his skull mashed to a bloody mess.
1967		P. Thomas Down These Mean Streets (1970) 16: You’d smack him down like Whiplash does in the cowboy flick or really light him up like Scarface in that gangster picture [...] and a poor fuckin’ loudmouth is laid out.
1975		E. Torres Carlito’s Way 13: [H]e’d jump out of a car [...] bat in hand—‘C’mere’—spook would run—one shot—lay ‘im out.

(c) (orig. US) to knock someone out in a fight; thus laying-out, a beating.

1848		‘Ned Buntline’ Mysteries and Miseries of N.Y. I 17: She hits harder than Bill Lord ever did; and he has laid me out twice.
1868		H.L. Williams Night in the New Hotel in Darkey Drama 4 43: I’ll lay out dis hyar fiddler.
1887		G. Devol Forty Years a Gambler 147: I began to lay them out as fast as I could with the billy.
1892		H. Lawson ‘The Captain of the Push’ in Roderick (1967–9) I 187: Would you lay him out and kick him to a jelly on the ground?
c.1900		Harrington & LeBrunn [perf. Marie Lloyd] The Coster’s Christening 🎵 My Bill give ’im such a layin’-out, when into ’im ’e pitched.
1903		A.H. Lewis Boss 116: He likes you, since you laid out Jimmy the Blacksmith that timeI.
1914		Western Times 11 Feb. 3/3: [She] exclaimed that she had come to see the ‘harlot,’ whom (she added) she intended to lay out like cold meat.
1916		J. Lait ‘The Gangster’s Elegy’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 250: You hit me? You lay me out?
1923		‘Sapper’ Jim Maitland (1953) 85: You laid him out as stiff as a piece of frozen mutton.
1930		K.S. Prichard Haxby’s Circus 194: He was only a couple of days out of gaol for doing a stretch for laying a man out.
1941		K. Tennant Battlers 79: He’d better not come round my camp, or I’ll lay him out with the trap-setter.
1956		J. Osborne Look Back in Anger Act II: If you slap my face – by God, I’ll lay you out!
1964		H. Selby Jr Last Exit to Brooklyn 42: How she defied her brother, the freak, and how she laid him out and walked right out of the house.
1975		E. Torres Carlito’s Way 15: Wap! — Big Jeff laid you out.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 29: If it hadn’t been Ticky’s twenty-first, Guy might have had to lay the fat boy out, then and there.
2008		‘Grandmaster Flash’ Adventures 104: Cowboy threw a lightning-fast uppercut [...] Laid Jamal out like a side of meat.
2012		A. Bergen ‘Dread Fellow Churls’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] I’d [...] laid out the blighter with a cricket bat.

(d) (Aus.) to indulge oneself to excess, e.g. in drinking.

1887		E. Custer Tenting on the Plains (rev. edn 1895) 373: The stage-station liquor was concocted from drugs and had power to lay out even a hard-drinking old cavalry-man like a dead person in what seemed no time at all.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 8 Dec. 42/2: Dan Boyle jogged into New Plymouth [...] with a £75 cheque [....], a chronic thirst [...] and a settled determination to ‘lay himself out,’ and ‘to do it in,’ and ‘make a name for himself’ in the approved fashion.

(e) (US) to amaze or astound.

1884		(con. c.1840) ‘Mark Twain’ Huckleberry Finn 215: Let ’em fetch along their suspicions now if they want to — this ’ll lay ’em out.
1976		Jenkins & Shrake Limo 82: ‘In Act Three, the duet between the Count and Susanna, that lays me out, man’.

(f) (US) to scold or reprimand; thus laying out n., a scolding.

1908		K. McGaffey Sorrows of a Show Girl Ch. xix: I lost just five hundred cold ones by the deal, and I sure does give this guy a laying out.
1911		S. Ford Torchy 143: She starts to lay out Mr. Robert good, for givin’ the frosty paw to a relation.
1928		M. West Pleasure Man (1997) II ii: I just laid him out stinkin’, the shopworn mess.
1930		J. Lait Put on the Spot 29: They’re laying me out like nobody’s business.
2000		(con. 1940s–60s) Décharné Straight from the Fridge Dad 137: Now that you’ve laid me out, when you gonna bury me? Have you finished criticizing me, or do I have to listen to more?

(g) (US black) to stop what one is doing, esp. suddenly; to absent oneself from a committment.

1975		cited in C. Major Juba to Jive (1994).
1984		D. Jenkins Life Its Ownself 145: Under the rules, therefore, he could lay out a season—this one—and be eligible to play for another school next year.

(h) (US black) to avoid someone, to step aside.

1975

cited in C. Major Juba to Jive (1994).