Lie has two meanings, and each has its own past tense. If you tell an untruth, you lie, and yesterday you lied. If you rest in a flat position, you lie, and yesterday you lay. Lay, a different verb, means to put something down, and its past tense is laid.
Some English words not only sound alike but are also spelled alike, yet mean something completely different. The verb to lie is one of them. Its two meanings look identical in the present tense, but they have different past tense forms. Those forms help to tell the two verbs apart, but they are also easy to mix up, especially since a third verb, to lay, gets in the way.
Read more about words that look or sound alike in the difference between homonyms, homophones, and homographs.
Lie vs. lie
The verb to lie has two meanings:
- to say something that is not true;
- to be in a flat position, or to rest in one.
Here is each meaning in a sentence:
- Jean lies all the time. (She does not tell the truth.)
- Tony lies on the bed. (He is resting on it.)
What about lay?
Another verb is very similar: to lay. Its meaning is related to the second meaning of lie. Instead of describing the state of being in a flat position, it describes the act of putting something down, often carefully:
- Please lay the packages down on the table.
Here is a simple test: lay always needs an object, something that is laid down. Lie never takes one. You lay a book on the table, but you lie on the sofa.
The forms of lie and lay
The two meanings of lie share the same present and future forms. They differ in the past tense and in the perfect tenses, which use the past participle (lied or lain).
| Tense | to lie (not tell the truth) | to lie (rest flat) | to lay (put down) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Present | I lie, she lies | I lie, she lies | I lay, she lays |
| Past | I lied | I lay | I laid |
| Present perfect | I have lied | I have lain | I have laid |
| Past perfect | I had lied | I had lain | I had laid |
| Future | I will lie | I will lie | I will lay |
| Future perfect | I will have lied | I will have lain | I will have laid |
| The -ing form | lying | lying | laying |
The past tense trap
The most common mistake comes from one small overlap: the past tense of lie (to rest) is lay, which is also the present tense of lay (to put down).
- Yesterday I lay on the beach all afternoon. (the past tense of lie)
- Every morning I lay the newspaper on the table. (the present tense of lay)
- Yesterday I laid the newspaper on the table. (the past tense of lay)
So Yesterday I laid on the beach is wrong: it should be Yesterday I lay on the beach. And I lied on the bed is only right if you told an untruth while you were on it.
Lie (to rest) and lay are not the only verbs with unusual past forms. For many more, read irregular verbs in English.