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> lay and lie These are liable to be confused. This is because lay as well as being a verb in its own right is also one of the principal parts of lie - the past tense, as in "They lay on the beach in the sun", "The books lay on the table gathering dust" and "She lay on her bed and wept".• Lay is a TRANSITIVE VERB meaning "to place or put", as in "She asked him to lay new tiles in the kitchen" and "She had to lay down her shopping to open the door". The principal parts of lay are "lays" (third person singular present), as in "She always lays the baby on the grass to play"; "laying" (present( participle), as in "Laying her shopping down she put her key in the lock"; "laid" (past participle and past tense), as in "She laid the package on the table" and "He had laid his car keys on the table and forgotten about them".• Lie is an INTRANSITIVE VERB whose principlal parts are "lies" (third( person singular present), as in "Their" house lies to the north of the village"; "lying" (present participle), as in "Lying on the grass they looked up at the sky"; "lay" (past tense), as in "The climbers lay on the summit exhausted"; "lain" (past participle), as in "Those" books have lain there for weeks".• Lie has another totally unrelated meaning. It means "to say or write something that is untrue", as in "You didn't have to lie about your part in the affair". The principal parts of the verb lie are "lies" (third person singular present), as in "lies about why he arrives home late from work"; "lying" (present participle), as in "Lying, he looked her straight in the face"; "lied" (past participle and past tense), as in "He lied to his employers about his qualifications" and "she suddenly realized that he had lied all the time". Pour éviter fautes de grammaire, contresens et confusions. The English Usage Dictionary est le parfait complément des dictionnaires bilingues, du dictionnaire de définitions anglaises et du Thesaurus. Ce dictionnaire signale toutes les difficultés que recèle l'usage d'un mot: orthographe, grammaire, prononciation, homonymies, etc. Exemple d'article du dictionnaire English Usage Dictionary