English Explanatory Dictionary

lay off

English dictionary entry

Meanings

verb

(of an employer) To dismiss (workers) from employment, e.g. at a time of low business volume or through no fault of the worker, often with a severance package.
To place all or part of a bet with another bookmaker in order to reduce risk.
To cease, quit, stop (doing something).
To stop bothering, teasing, or pestering someone; to leave (someone) alone.
In painting, to apply gentle strokes to smooth a wet coat of paint so as to remove visible roller- or brush-marks, commonly using a dry brush; a similar technique, but using a loaded laying-off brush, may produce a smooth coat of paint when using a roller or the usual brush techniques would leave marks.
To plan out (a navigational course) using a chart.

verb

simple past of lie off

Pronunciation

En-au-lay off.ogg

Word forms

lay off lays off laying off laid off

Synonyms

make redundant let go hedge one's bets tip off can dismiss fire sack terminate give the axe give the boot give their cards give the chop give the elbow give the old heave-ho axe decruit dehire discard remove discharge downsize give someone the boot give someone their cards give someone the heave-ho give someone the old heave-ho lay off let someone go pink slip promote to customer retrench serve notice shit-can term throw out unhire

Antonyms

employ hire recruit take on give notice leave quit retire

Related words

be surplus to requirements get sacked get the ax get the boot get the chop get the heave-ho get the sack unemployed

Derived words

layoff

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.

Back to search All on L Russian dictionary Dahl dictionary