lair – English noun declension

English noun forms of lair

Noun: lair
Singularlair
Plurallairs

Sample Sentences

  • O dainty dew, O morning dew / That gleamed in the world's first dawn, did you / And the sweet grass and manful oaks / Give lair and rest / To him who toadwise sits and croaks / His death-behest? [a. 1881, Sidney Lanier, Strange Jokes:]
  • “Would you go into the dragon's lair, my peerless Wiglaf?” [1961, Norma Lorre Goodrich, “Beowulf”, in The Medieval Myths, New York: The New American Library, page 47:]
  • ...Van Helsing stood up and said, "Now, my dear friends, we go forth to our terrible enterprise. Are we all armed, as we were on that night when first we visited our enemy's lair. Armed against ghostly as well as carnal attack?" [1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula, Westminster [London]: Archibald Constable and Company, […], →OCLC:]
  • [H]e did a little scout work, and discovered the lair of that old woman. [1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 41:]
  • Then would I in Plenty's lap,
  • For the first time take a nap;
  • Falling back in easy lair,
  • Sweetly slumb'ring in my chair; [1820, John Clare, “Address to Plenty in Winter”, in Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery, page 50:]
  • Wake ye, sleep ye, my hapless boy,
  • In this homeless house of care?
  • Lack ye the warmth of a mother's eye
  • On the cauldrife, lonely lair? [1843 June 26, William Thom, “Extract from a Letter to J. Robertson, Esq.”, in Rhymes and Recollections of a Hand-loom Weaver, 3rd edition, London: Smith, Elder and Co., published 1847, page 136:]
  • […] but few knew the reason, and some thought it was because the deceased were strangers, and had no regular lair. I dressed the two bonny orphans in the best mourning at my own cost […] [1821, John Galt, Annals of the parish, or, The chronicle of Dalmaling, xlix (page 205 in the 1908 edition)]
  • This is one of the 'lairs' of the Harknesses of Holestain and Haprig. [1849, The Edinburgh topographical, traditional and antiquarian magazine, page 114:]
  • […] I would purchase a lair in the Necropolis, and have wee Johnnie removed from his humble resting-place, and laid down [there]. [1862, George Roy, Generalship; a Tale, page 58:]
  • We appreciate that this is a sensitive issue for lair owners and would like to assure them that the maintenance of the cemetery is carried out in a sensitive and dignified manner. [2018 August 2, BBC News, quoting Aberdeen City Council, “Dad 'will sleep by son's grave' to stop council clearing mementoes”, in BBC News:]

Etymology

From Middle English leir, leire, lair, lare, from Old English leġer (“couch, bed”), from Proto-Germanic *legrą, from Proto-Indo-European *legʰ-. See: Old English Nouns 'leġer'.

Verbs referencing "lair"

Dutch Nouns leger, English Nouns lager, German Nouns Lager, Danish Nouns lejr, Dutch Nouns leem, Icelandic Nouns leir.