Lay by meaning

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British Dictionary definitions for lay-by

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Idioms and Phrases with lay-by

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary

nounplural noun lay-bys

• 1British An area at the side of a road where vehicles may pull off the road and stop.

  North American term rest stop

  ‘The cameras can be at the side of the road, in lay-bys and on motorway bridges.’

  • ‘Some are understood to have gone from lay-bys alongside major trunk roads such as the A64, while five others are set to be removed in the near future from streets in York.’
  • ‘One problem was that some councils had removed litter bins from trunk road lay-bys to encourage motorists to take their rubbish home with them and to save collection costs.’
  • ‘The five-week scheme will also mean the closure of lay-bys on both sides of the dual-carriageway road at this point.’
  • ‘The decision was taken despite fears raised by people living near the lay-by on the B4632 road to Broadway.’
  • ‘Then the group set off up the narrow winding lane to the main road and the lay-by.’
  • ‘You can relax just as easily in a lay-by the side of the road that is home to three-dozen cars, a toilet block and an ice cream van.’
  • ‘We took the main road from Inverness that goes right along the Western side of the loch, stopping at all the lay-bys on the way down.’
  • ‘The vehicle then pulled into the lay-by and parked up for several hours.’
  • ‘There is a lay-by on each carriageway, but 70 mph roads have those as well without anyone complaining that they represent a safety threat.’
  • ‘Work will also include the installation of new and bigger lay-bys, improvements to road drainage and the addition of a hard strip to both sides of the carriageway.’
  • ‘He said he intended to press for a bus stop to be reinstated in a lay-by on the deceleration lane leading to the flyover, saying other lay-bys were used by buses elsewhere on the A64.’
  • ‘Every lay-by on every road is always littered with garbage.’
  • ‘They stop at the lay-bys and throw their rubbish out.’
  • ‘We had pulled into a lay-by between an articulated lorry and a car.’
  • ‘It then pulled up in a lay-by, where the occupants were seen trying to set light to the fuel tank before they fled.’
  • ‘The men suffered only minor injuries and because of the damage to the car and the accident happening late at night, they decided to sleep overnight in the vehicle, in a lay-by.’
  • ‘I drove it at speed with the roof off and waited for the howling to become so intolerable that I needed to rest in a lay-by for 20 minutes until the trembling stopped.’
  • ‘About 7,000 motorists will be stopped on two separate days at undisclosed lay-bys, with police being used to tell drivers to pull over.’
  • ‘Whether cars are abandoned in residential streets or remote lay-bys they do not send out the message we want.’

  store, store up, stock up on, stockpile, put aside, put by, put away, lay by, lay in, lay up, set aside, stow away, buy up, cache, amass, heap up, pile up, stack up

  1. 1.1A mooring area along a canal, river, or harbour.

     ‘A lay-by for vessels was excavated on the south side of the upper canal cut, about halfway between the head of the cut and the lock.’

     • ‘A lay by mooring area is available immediately to the east of the boat ramp.’
     • ‘The control barge was successfully towed through the Barataria Waterway and completed the route to a lay-by berth in the Mississippi River.’

• 2Australian, New Zealand, South African mass nounA system of paying a deposit to secure an article for later purchase.

  ‘you could secure it by lay-by’

  • ‘they take credit cards and lay-bys’
  • ‘The manufacturing sector are in despair that the bulk of the R&D money is on lay-by and won't be paid until the third and fourth year out.’
  • ‘You don't have to be a Medici to commission a creative work, in fact if it's not being disrespectful, we almost did it on lay-by.’
  • ‘This bill is a Christmas present for New Zealand workers, even if the full benefit of the gift is subject to a rather lengthy lay-by arrangement.’