lair
pronunciation
How to pronounce lair in British English:
UK [leə(r)]
How to pronounce lair in American English:
US [ler]
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- Noun:
- the habitation of wild animals
Word Origin
- lair
- lair: [OE] Etymologically a lair is a place where you ‘lie’ down. For it comes ultimately from the same Germanic base, *leg-, as produced English lie. In Old English it had a range of meanings, from ‘bed’ to ‘grave’, which are now defunct, and the modern sense ‘place where an animal lives’ did not emerge until the 15th century. Related Germanic forms show different patterns of semantic development: Dutch leger, for instance, means ‘bed’ and ‘camp’ (it has given English beleaguer [16] and, via Afrikaans, laager [19]) and German lager (source of English lager) means ‘bed’, ‘camp’, and ‘storeroom’. Layer in the sense ‘stratum’ [17] (which to begin with was a culinary term) may have originated as a variant of lair.=> beleaguer, laager, lager, lay, layer, lie
- lair (n.)
- Old English leger "bed, couch, grave; act or place of lying down," from Proto-Germanic *legraz (cognates: Old Norse legr "grave," also "nuptials" ("a lying down"); Old Frisian leger "situation," Old Saxon legar "bed," Middle Dutch legher "act or place of lying down," Dutch leger "bed, camp," Old High German legar "bed, a lying down," German Lager "bed, lair, camp, storehouse," Gothic ligrs "place of lying"), from PIE *legh- "to lie, lay" (see lie (v.2)). Meaning "animal's den" is from early 15c.
Example
- 1. This thing looks like a secret lair !
- 2. Of these , the island lair may be the best .
- 3. For those suspicious that china harbours mercantilist , zero-sum designs on global resources , it is an ornament worthy of a bond villain 's lair .
- 4. Customs officials who found the spider in its unorthodox lair decided to search the man , discovering the scale of the offence .
- 5. Americans are raging at " ally " pakistan over the discovery of osama bin laden 's lair in abbottabad , smack under the nose of the military .