waylaid

English

Alternative forms

• waylayed (nonstandard)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌweɪˈleɪd/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪd

Verb

waylaid

1. simple past and past participle of waylay
   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:

     I have a jest to execute that I cannot manage
     alone. Falstaff, Bardolph, Peto, and Gadshill shall rob
     those men that we have already 'waylaid – yourself and I
     will not be there. And when they have the booty, if you
     and I do not rob them – cut this head off from my
     shoulders.

   • 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 20, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:

     My beloved reader has no doubt in the course of his experience been waylaid by many such a luckless companion