Green’s Dictionary of Slang

lay out v.

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

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.
[UK]Wodehouse Psmith in the City (1993) 47: Yelling ‘Buck up Cottagers!’ or ‘Lay ’em out, Pensioners!’.
[Aus]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.
[US]D. Dressler Parole Chief 11: In quiet, courteous tones [he] laid him out forty ways for Sunday.
[US]E. De Roo Go, Man, Go! 14: Now that you’ve laid me out, when you gonna bury me?

(b) (US) to kill.

[US] ‘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’).
[UK]Marvel XV:373 Jan. 10: My opinion aire that he hev laid out his pards fer some reason.
[UK]‘Taffrail’ Pincher Martin 337: I gits rated up ten days ago, [...] death vacancy. Poor ole Byles got laid out, yer remember.
[US]J. Lait Put on the Spot 20: I laid out better men ’n him before you was born.
[US]Mad mag. Dec. 25: Ed McSweeney was laid out for good, his skull mashed to a bloody mess.
[US]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.
[US]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.

[US]‘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.
[US]H.L. Williams Night in the New Hotel in Darkey Drama 4 43: I’ll lay out dis hyar fiddler.
[US]G. Devol Forty Years a Gambler 147: I began to lay them out as fast as I could with the billy.
[Aus]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?
[UK]Harrington & LeBrunn [perf. Marie Lloyd] The Coster’s Christening 🎵 My Bill give ’im such a layin’-out, when into ’im ’e pitched.
[US]A.H. Lewis Boss 116: He likes you, since you laid out Jimmy the Blacksmith that timeI.
[UK]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.
[US]J. Lait ‘The Gangster’s Elegy’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 250: You hit me? You lay me out?
[UK]‘Sapper’ Jim Maitland (1953) 85: You laid him out as stiff as a piece of frozen mutton.
[Aus]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.
[Aus]K. Tennant Battlers 79: He’d better not come round my camp, or I’ll lay him out with the trap-setter.
[UK]J. Osborne Look Back in Anger Act II: If you slap my face – by God, I’ll lay you out!
[US]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.
[US]E. Torres Carlito’s Way 15: Wap! — Big Jeff laid you out.
[UK]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.
[US]‘Grandmaster Flash’ Adventures 104: Cowboy threw a lightning-fast uppercut [...] Laid Jamal out like a side of meat.
[Aus] 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.

[US]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.
[Aus]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.

[US](con. c.1840) ‘Mark Twain’ Huckleberry Finn 215: Let ’em fetch along their suspicions now if they want to — this ’ll lay ’em out.
[US]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.

[US]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.
[US]S. Ford Torchy 143: She starts to lay out Mr. Robert good, for givin’ the frosty paw to a relation.
[US]M. West Pleasure Man (1997) II ii: I just laid him out stinkin’, the shopworn mess.
[US]J. Lait Put on the Spot 29: They’re laying me out like nobody’s business.
[US](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?
[US]S. Blass Pirate for Life 91: I don’t recall exactly what she wrote in it, but I know it was just laced with profanities and she laid him out.

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

[US]cited in C. Major Juba to Jive (1994).
[US]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.

[US]cited in C. Major Juba to Jive (1994).

2. (also lay it out) to inform, to pass on information, to make something clear.

[US]Ersine Und. and Prison Sl. 50: layout, v. To plan a robbery.
[US]Goldin et al. DAUL 122/2: Lay out, v. To draft plans, as for a theft.
[US]P. Thomas Down These Mean Streets (1970) 324: I tried to lay out the scene I’d pass through at nine o’clock that night.
[US]D. Jenkins Semi-Tough 11: How come you standin’ up there layin’ out all this jive?
[UK]G.F. Newman You Flash Bastard 35: He laid out the prospect of the jewellry store raid to the senior detective, as he had done with other cases before.
[US]‘Iceberg Slim’ Airtight Willie and Me 32: Like I laid it out front, you ain’t got nothing but sucker odds.
[US]C. Stroud Close Pursuit (1988) 157: Peruggio lit a stogie as Kennedy laid it out for him.
[US](con. 1970s) G. Pelecanos King Suckerman (1998) 73: They laid that shit out and ran it down.
[US]D.H. Sterry Chicken (2003) 130: I laid out the whole thing, soup to nuts.

3. (US campus) to sunbathe.

[US]Current Sl. I:2 4/1: Lay out, v. Get a tan.
[US]Eble Sl. and Sociability 30: In college slang out is the most productive particle: [...] lay out ‘sunbathe’.

4. (US black) to have sexual intercourse.

[US]C. Brown Mr Jive-Ass Nigger 14: [H]e was (un)fortunately seduced by a wayward and voluptuous aunt. After this initial loss of innocence, the boy took to laying out with women.

5. (Irish) to deceive sexually.

[Ire]W. Burrowes Riordans 47: Minnie believed for a while that he had another woman, (or, as Francey put it, that he was layin’ out), but it turned out that the only rival was the horse.

In phrases

lay it out (v.)

1. of a homosexual of either sex, to admit and poss. flaunt one’s sexual preference.

[US]Maledicta VI:1+2 (Summer/Winter) 129: Some are bold to proclaim they are dykes and lay it out before us.

2. to offer oneself for intercourse.

[US]B. Hamper Rivethead (1992) 53: White trash hookers who’d lay it all out on a haymow.

3. see sense 2 above.

lay out cold (v.) (orig. US)

to knock out, to defeat.

[US]Mass. Spy 22 July n.p.: I want to lay out [this candidate] as cold as a wedge.
in Military and Naval Mag. of US June 248: They came mighty near laying us out cold as a wagon-tire [HDAS].
[US]Congressional Globe 17 Apr. 759: Gentlemen of the South, you have us in your power. All I ask is that, after you have laid us out cold, you will not point us out as having been bought dog-cheap.
[US]C. Chesnutt Colonel’s Dream 222: Lee had more strength, but Bark had more science, an’ laid Lee out col’.
[UK]Derby Dly Teleg. 18 June 4/4: The communists are not human beings. we will lay them out cold.
[Scot]Eve. Teleg (Dundee) 14 Nov. 8/2: This potent liquor was supposed to lay you out cold.
[US](con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 388: He’d like to take Smith and Dolan on together and lay them out cold.
lay out in lavender (v.)

(US) to scold severely, to indulge in a verbal battle.

[US]G.H. Bean Yankee Auctioneer 185: With that I moved over in front of the troublemakers and laid them out in lavender. The staid old hall where I was holding this sale never before heard the English language reeled off in the style I rendered right then.
[US] in DARE.
[US]Harper’s Weekly 26 Jan. 19: ‘I’ll lay you out in lavender’ (I’ll scold you severely) [HDAS].
lay (out) like a carpet (v.) (also lay (out) like a rug)

(US) to knock unconscious.

[US]Collier’s 19 Sept. 48: To-day Tierney would lay you like a carpet [HDAS].
[US]L. Berg Prison Doctor 135: You can lay that dinge like a carpet.
I. Shaw in New Yorker 11 Mar. 23: Dempsey would lay Louis out like a carpet [HDAS].