lepay

English

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Verb

lepay (third-person singular simple present lepays, present participle lepaying, simple past and past participle lepayed)

1. (Trinidad and Tobago) To smear a mixture of mud, dung and water by hand to make walls or floors.
   • [1972, Black Images, volume 1:

     lepaying - smearing mixture of mud, dung and water by hand to make walls, floors, etc.]

   • 1991, Carmen C. Esteves, Green Cane and Juicy Flotsam: Short Stories by Caribbean Women:

     My travel across the water to this land has not been easy and many a time I have squatted in the dirt of this or that lepayed hut, a few coins knotted in the corner of my ohrni, waiting, waiting - waiting to make the next move.

   • 2018, Kenrick B. Maharaj, Reminiscing: Stories of My Youth:

     In a Hindu family having a cow was not only sacred, but it also gave milk for nourishment, produced cow manure to fertilize the plants, made 'gobar' (fresh cow droppings) to 'lepay' the floors and walls of mud huts […]

   • 2019, Rabindranath Maharaj, Fatboy Fall Down: A Novel:

     Nobody know how to lepay again, but them mud house was cooler than anything else.

   • 2021, Erma Jacob, A Dougla’s Tale: Growing up Inter-Racial in Inter-Cultural Flanagin Town, Trinidad:

     Using a mixture of dirt, water and cow dung, Mommy lepayed (plastered the ground) until it was smooth.