to lie down
- phrasal verb
- /laɪ daʊn/
- Feeling tired, she decided to lie down for a quick nap before dinner.
- lie down to sleep
- lie down in bed
- lie down at night
I want to lie down in southern Georgia.
- I want to lie down in southern Georgia.
- I felt the need to lay down to relax.
- So I thought, well, maybe all the lying down in bed, you know, created this.
- And then just lay down in your back and go to sleep.
- You can just lie down in the back seat of a pickup truck.
- In that moment I stopped fighting and I lay down and I died in that moment.
- And I never tire of the weirdness of seeing that bear lying down on the floor of the shop.
- But when I would lie down, so my lungs would fill with fluid by the way.
Examples
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- Come on, let's just go to my room and lie down.
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I'm going to lie down and stop talking.
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I think we should lie down now.
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You know, I gotta... I gotta lie down.
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I just wanna lie down in a nice, cool place.
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In the room, I take off my shoes and lie down on the bed.
Academic text (2007) -
I take off my shoes, lie down, and wait for night to come.
Academic text (2007) -
I'll be all right as soon as I can get some place where I can lie down.
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I'm just going to lie down for a little bit.
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Well, I'll do the dishes, then I'm going to lie down for a minute and rest.
Fiction book (1991)
Synonyms
To rest flat on a surface
Lie down with your body straight to rest or relax
To sleep in a temporary place like on the floor or in the living room
To make someone lean back into a comfortable position
To sleep in a temporary place like a barn or tent
To lie down and rest
To lie on your back with your face up
Antonyms
How Reclined
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'to put your body in a flat or horizontal position' is directly and transparently built from 'lie' (be horizontal) plus 'down' (toward a lower position). This verb+particle composition follows a common, predictable pattern in English (and in many other languages), so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
Lie down comes from the simple image of putting your body flat: you lie and move down onto a bed, sofa, or the ground to rest. So it means 'to put your body in a flat position', usually to rest or sleep.