Licgan

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Old English verb meaning to lie down, stretch out, or rest the body on a surface
2. An Old English verb for reclining or lying flat, as a person or animal does when resting
3. Describing the act of lying down or being stretched out on the ground or a bed in Old English

Etymology: Old English "licgan" meant "to lie down" or "to lie in a horizontal position," and it survives today as the source of the modern verb "lie." Its past tense was "læg," which shows up in modern English as "lay," and this is why English speakers have long struggled to keep the two verbs apart: "lay" was once the past tense of "lie," and it later took on the separate sense "to put something down," a transitive verb with its own history. The word belongs to the Germanic branch of Indo-European, with cognates such as Dutch "liggen" and German "liegen," which both still mean "to lie" in the sense of resting flat. Its earlier roots are reconstructed rather than attested, so the older lineage is best treated as a matter of scholarly inference. What is certain is that the verb has been in English since the earliest written records, so the word predates the Norman Conquest by centuries.