unlaid

[ uhn-leyd ]

adjective

1. not laid or placed:

   The table is still unlaid.

2. (of dead bodies) not laid out; not prepared for burial.
3. not laid to rest, as a spirit.
4. untwisted, as a rope.

Word History and Origins

Origin of unlaid¹

First recorded in 1425–75, unlaid is from the late Middle English word unleyd. See un- ¹, laid

Example Sentences

Yet as Freud himself wrote, “A thing which has not been understood inevitably reappears; like an unlaid ghost, it cannot rest until the mystery has been solved and the spell broken.”

From Washington Post

For the first time, researchers have found an unlaid egg inside a fossil bird.

From Science Magazine

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Mr. Hamilton dismissed his critics as the “great unlaid.”

From Washington Post

They found the poison in all of the testes of male robins examined, in developing egg follicles, in the ovaries of females, in completed but unlaid eggs, in the oviducts, in unhatched eggs from deserted nests, in embryos within the eggs, and in a newly hatched, dead nestling.

From Literature

Kerry Perkins, an aquarist at the Sea Life aquarium in Brighton, said a four-year fast was a possibility, but noted that the octopus may have got nutrients from unlaid eggs or very occasional, unobserved titbits.

From BBC