
I’m glad I looked today because I came across this one. I’ve seen both versions of this word used in the past and not come across an explanation I understood so every time I’ve needed clarification I’d query it again. I’m sure I’ve made plenty of mistakes but I’m definitely thankful English allows a person to write a thought in a variety of ways thereby allowing us to work around the writing rule(s) we don’t quite understand. I believe ones writing says a lot about the writer or a reflection of them so I like to put a little effort in mine regardless of how informal the situation. ‘Layed was once the most common spelling of ‘laid’, but it has fallen out of use. To summarize, the word ‘laid’ is the past tense of ‘lay’. If it was the case, then the spelling ‘layed’ would not have reflected the pronunciation, so they may have changed it before the spellings were completely set in stone. In some older texts, such as The Faerie Queene from 1590 (over 400 years ago), the spelling was ‘layd’, which would seem to indicate a more modern pronunciation. It is likely that some verbs with a vowel sound before the Y were the first to be pronounced in a way closer to modern English. Long ago, the –ed was pronounced with the ‘eh’ sound as well as the D sound. In modern English, the –ed at the end of verbs is pronounced with just the D sound.

The reason it was changed was because of the pronunciation. That spelling rule was not always the case in English, as evidenced by the fact that ‘layed’ once was accepted. ‘Say’ just becomes ‘said’, ‘pay’ becomes ‘paid’, and ‘lay’ becomes ‘laid’. However, when the letter before that is a vowel, like in ‘say’, then there is no E added. Those past tense forms are pronounced differently from other verbs ending in Y: ‘tried’ has a long I sound in it, while ‘stayed’ does not. There are a few exceptions, such as ‘enjoy’ and ‘enjoyed’, as well as ‘stay’ and ‘stayed’. For many of them, when you turn it into past tense, you turn the Y into an I and then add –ed to the end. The ones that have a consonant before the Y are almost always regular. Some verbs that end in Y are not regular. Then there are the irregular verbs, which do not follow that pattern. Either the –ed is added to the end, like ‘talk’ to ‘talked’, or just the –d is added when the verb already ends in an E, like ‘smoke’ to ‘smoked’. Regular verbs are ones that have a regular conjugation: the past tense and past participle end in –ed. However, this is sometimes not the case when the verb ends in a Y. Most of the time in English, verbs can be changed from present tense to past tense by adding an –ed to the end. That is, it might still be used when someone is trying to create an old time feel, but nobody uses it outside of that. In this case, ‘lay odds’ is a slang term for making a bet.
PAST TENSE OF LAY EYES ON HOW TO
“I’ll lay odds that you don’t know how to swim.”

“She laid a bet on the first horse entered into the race.” They word has also become associated with bets. This is especially common in the phrase ‘lay an egg’, which means to produce one. “The architects laid out the blueprints for the building.” It can mean to create or prepare something.

It can mean to put something down on a surface. ‘Lay’ most often means to set something down, both figuratively and metaphorically. ‘Laid’ is the past tense and past participle of the word ‘lay’. However, the difference is that while they once meant the same thing, one is no longer used as a word. ‘Laid’ and ‘layed’ can be frequently confused, especially for people who are new to the language, because one of them looks much more natural to use than the other.
