lye

See also: lyé

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /laɪ/
• Rhymes: -aɪ
• Homophones: lie, lai

Etymology 1

From Old English lēag, from Proto-Germanic *laugō, from Proto-Indo-European *leu(ə)- (“to wash”).

Noun

lye (countable and uncountable, plural lyes)

1. An alkaline liquid made by leaching ashes (usually wood ashes).
2. Potassium or sodium hydroxide (caustic soda).

Translations

caustic alkaline solution

• Albanian: alisivë (sq) f
• Armenian: մոխրաջուր (hy) (moxraǰur)
• Aromanian: alsivã f, alisivã f
• Bulgarian: лу́га f (lúga)
• Catalan: lleixiu m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 灰汁 (zh) (huīzhī), 灰水 (huīshuǐ)

• Czech: louh m
• Danish: lud c
• Dutch: loog (nl) n
• Esperanto: alkala solvaĵo
• Finnish: lipeä (fi)
• French: soude (fr) f, soude caustique (fr) f, lessive de soude (fr) f, potasse caustique (fr) f, potasse (fr) f
• German: Lauge (de) f
• Greek: αλισίβα (el) f (alisíva)
• Hungarian: lúg (hu)
• Icelandic: lútur

• Irish: buac f
• Italian: liscivia (it) f, cenerata f, ranno (it) m
• Japanese: 灰汁 (ja) (あく, aku), あく (ja) (aku)
• Latin: lix m
• Norwegian: lut (no) m, f
• Polish: ług (pl)
• Portuguese: lixívia (pt)
• Romanian: leșie (ro)
• Russian: щёлок (ru) m (ščólok)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: лу̑г m

  Roman: lȗg (sh) m

• Spanish: lejía (es) f
• Swedish: lut (sv) c
• Tagalog: tilis
• Welsh: lleisw m

potassium or sodium hydroxide

• Dutch: natriumhydroxide n, caustic soda m, f, caustische soda m, f, bijtende soda m, f
• French: soude caustique (fr) f, hydroxyde de sodium (fr)

• German: Ätznatron n, kaustische(s) Soda) n
• Italian: idrossido di sodio m, soda caustica f

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Occitan: ^{(please verify)} lessiu
• Persian: ^{(please verify)} آب قلیائی‏‎

• Quechua: ^{(please verify)} lliptʼa
• Vietnamese: ^{(please verify)} nước (vi) ^{(please verify)} gio (vi)

Derived terms

• lyed

Further reading

• lye on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Etymology 2

You can help Wiktionary by providing a proper etymology.

Noun

lye (plural lyes)

1. (Britain, railways) A short side line, connected with the main line; a turn-out; a siding.

Verb

lye (third-person singular simple present lyes, present participle lying, simple past and past participle lyed)

1. Obsolete spelling of lie
   • John Dryden

     But when his foe lyes prostrate on the plain,
     He sheaths his paws, uncurls his angry mane;
     And, pleas'd with bloudless honours of the day,
     Walks over, and disdains th' inglorious Prey.

   • John Donne, Loves Diet

     Now negligent of sports I lye,
     And now as other Fawkners use,
     I spring a mistresse, sweare, write, sigh and weepe:
     And the game kill'd, or lost, goe talk, and sleepe.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for lye in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)

Anagrams

• Ely, ley, yel