Lay (redirected from lay hold on)

Nonprofessional, such as a lay witness who is not a recognized expert in the area that is the subject of the person's testimony. That which relates to persons or entities not clerical or ecclesiastical; a person not in ecclesiastical orders. To present the formal declarations by the parties of their respective claims and defenses in pleadings. A share of the profits of a fishing or Whaling voyage, allotted to the officers and seamen, in the nature of wages.

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LAY, English law. That which relates to persons or things not ecclesiastical. In the United States the people are not, by law, divided, as in England, into ecclesiastical and lay. The law makes no distinction between them.

TO LAY, pleading. To state or to allege. The place from whence a jury are to be summoned, is called the venue, and the allegation in the declaration, of the place where the jury is to be summoned, is in technical language, said to lay the venue. 3 Steph. Com. 574; 3 Bouv. Inst. n. 2826.