to lie in
35
8.5
- phrasal verb
- Archaic
:
guardar reposo tras el parto
- Sebastian enters the room to find Kathryn lying in bed, wearing only her bathrobe.
- lie in bed
Examples
-
The night before, I'm lying in bed visualizing myself jumping off the plane, thinking, what if the parachute doesn't open?
-
PULL BACK to reveal Farrell lying in a hospital bed in striped pajamas, reading it.
Fiction book (2002) -
It's a luxury to lie in bed and be taken care of.
Fiction book (2002) -
You know, I'm not gonna accept another date all week, just so I can lie in bed and remember this.
-
Sometimes, when I lie in bed at night, I think about him... and I know that, at that very moment... he's thinking about me too.
-
The picture illustrates him lying in bed with his laptop.
Academic text (2015) -
KAREN'S DORM ROOM - NIGHT: Karen lies in bed, under the covers.
Fiction book (1991) -
They can try and do physio and things like that, but you're kind of just lying in bed for that anyway.
-
Because when I was lying in bed, I wasn't saying to myself I should get up because that's going to help me start my day, right?
-
After giving birth, she was able to lie in bed and bond with her newborn.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The components 'lie' (to be positioned) + 'in' (inside) transparently yield the general sense 'be in bed', so a B1 learner who knows the words will grasp the basic meaning. However, the specialized, restricted sense referring specifically to the postpartum period (lying in after childbirth) is a pragmatic/cultural narrowing that is not predictable from the constituents alone, so the MWE is only partially transparent.
Etymology
Lie in comes from an old custom where a new mother would literally stay in bed after giving birth to rest and recover. That's why the phrase means 'to be in bed after giving birth'.