waylay

From way +‎ lay, likely a calque of Middle Dutch wegelagen (“besetting of ways, lying in wait with evil or hostile intent along public ways”). Compare Middle Low German wegelagen, German wegelagern (“to waylay; rob”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˌweɪˈleɪ/, /ˈweɪleɪ/

• Audio (Southern England):

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• Audio (Southern England):

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• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈweɪleɪ/
• Rhymes: -eɪ

waylay (third-person singular simple present waylays, present participle waylaying, simple past and past participle waylaid or (nonstandard) waylayed)

1. (transitive) To lie in wait for and attack from ambush.

   Synonyms: ambush, lurk

   • 1821, Thomas De Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater:

     Oh, youthful benefactress! how often in succeeding years, standing in solitary places, and thinking of thee with grief of heart and perfect love—how often have I wished that, as in ancient times, the curse of a father was believed to have a supernatural power, and to pursue its object with a fatal necessity of self-fulfilment; even so the benediction of a heart oppressed with gratitude might have a like prerogative, might have power given to it from above to chase, to haunt, to waylay, to overtake, to pursue thee into the central darkness of a London brothel, or (if it were possible) into the darkness of the grave, there to awaken thee with an authentic message of peace and forgiveness, and of final reconciliation!

2. (transitive) To accost or intercept unexpectedly.

   Synonym: buttonhole

   • 1986 November 24, Susan Sontag, “The Way We Live Now”, in The New Yorker‎^[1]:

     And when some of the friends, the ones who came every day, waylaid the doctor in the corridor, Stephen was the one who asked the most informed questions, who’d been keeping up not just with the stories that appeared several times a week in the Times […]