offlay

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English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From off- +‎ lay. Possibly from Middle English oflæien (to offlay; delay), from Old English ofleċġan (to lay down; put away; overlay; cover), from Proto-Germanic *abalagjaną. Compare also Dutch afleggen, German ablegen.

Verb[edit]

offlay (third-person singular simple present offlays, present participle offlaying, simple past and past participle offlaid)

  1. (transitive, rare) To offset.
    • 1993, Professor Scott M Lash, Professor John Urry, Economies of Signs and Space - Page 178:
      The subcontractors themselves outsource work to others in a 'chain of subcontractors' in order further to offlay risks.
    • 2000, Dorothy Rowe, Friends and enemies - Page 171:
      That seemed to offlay the sense of "the bastards who did this". Quite often there seemed to me to be a sense of failure to protect one's own from the bastards.
    • 2007, Climate Change: The Citizen's Agenda, Eighth Report of Session 2006-07, Vol. 2: Oral and Written Evidence:
      [] that you are going to control people's lives to the extent that they are able and willing to incur carbon cost which they will then have to offlay.

Anagrams[edit]