lay into

English

Verb

lay into (third-person singular simple present lays into, present participle laying into, simple past and past participle laid into)

1. (colloquial) To beat up or launch an attack against; to strike forcefully.
   • 1936, Norman Lindsay, The Flyaway Highway, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 16:

     A very spirited affair it looked with its red body and yellow wheels, bouncing about on its high C springs [...] with its four horses going full stretch and two postilions in knee-cords and top-boots laying into the horses in a lather of dust and excitement.

   • 2021 March 10, Drachinifel, 11:26 from the start, in Guadalcanal Campaign - The Big Night Battle: Night 1 (IJN 3(?) : 2 USN)‎^[1], archived from the original on 17 October 2022:

     The U.S. ships did the nautical version of someone stuck in a pub when the chairs and glass starts flying, who just looked around, shrugged their shoulders, and immediately lays into the nearest combatant.

2. (colloquial, figurative) To berate; to scold.
   • 2026 March 16, Peter Baker, “In Choosing ‘Epic Fury,’ Trump Names a War and Defines His Presidency”, in The New York Times‎^[2], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC:

     Indeed, after laying into Volodymyr Zelensky, the embattled president of an embattled Ukraine, in the Oval Office last year, Mr. Trump noted with satisfaction that “this is going to be great television.”

     (Can we archive this URL?)

3. (colloquial) To start eating voraciously.

   I'm gonna lay into that ice cream later tonight.

Translations

To beat up.

• Dutch: te lijf gaan, aanvallen (nl)
• French: assommer (fr)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: lange ut mot

To berate; to scold.

• Dutch: uitkafferen (nl), berispen (nl)
• French: engueuler (fr), réprimander (fr)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: lange ut mot

Further reading

• “lay into v.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, 2016–present.