The Phrasal Verb 'Lay Off' Explained
- 7 hours ago
- 9 min read
An explanation of the different meanings of the English phrasal verb 'lay off' from a native speaker, with lots of examples in context
Hello and welcome to my website for English learners all about phrasal verbs where I explain their different meanings to help you understand, learn and use them like a native.
Have you ever heard of the phrasal verb 'lay off' before? Did you know that there are at least three different ways to use it in English? In this post, I will explain each of these different ways for you, from terminating someone's employment to passing a ball in a football game. I will also provide you with lots of examples of each usage, so that you can start using it in your English conversations and show how skilled you are with English phrasal verbs 😊 So, let's get started and see what the phrasal verb 'lay off' is all about....
TABLE OF CONTENTSÂ (Click to jump to each one)
I love writing this blog & helping learners but I receive very little feedback as to how useful it is or if people enjoy & learn from it. Therefore, if you find the post useful, please like & share it or leave a comment at the end. I'd be very grateful. Thank you! James 😊 |
THE BASICS
LAY OFF: KEY INFORMATION
Usage | Medium |
Number of meanings | 3 |
Past tense forms | Laid off / Laid off |
Separable? | Sometimes |
I know that you are here to learn more about the phrasal verb 'lay off' but before we get started with that, let's first take a moment to familiarise ourselves with the individual words 'lay' and 'off'.
Lay - The verb 'to lay' is a confusing one because it is easy to mix it up with the verb 'to lie', especially when used in the past tense. We use this verb to mean 'to put something or someone in a horizontal position or on its side' and both of its past tense forms are 'laid'. The verb 'to lie', on the other hand, is used to mean to put yourself in a horizontal position and, to make things more complicated, it's simple past form is 'lay' 🤦 . If you ever mix these up when speaking English, do not worry as you are not alone; I hear native speakers making this mistake all the time!
I need to lay the table for dinner.
We need to lay the baby down to sleep.
My colleague laid all of her documents over my desk while I was in a meeting.
Susan laid a blanket on the floor for the dog to sleep on.
Off - The prepositional particle 'off' is a word that is used a lot in everyday English for a variety of different purposes. It functions as the natural opposite of the particle 'on' and it can therefore be used to describe things that are not operational, not working or not in contact with a specific surface, to name a few. When used in phrasal verbs, 'off' can add various ideas, which include separation (break off), removal (take off), deactivation (turn off) and reaction (go off), among others.
So, now that we have looked at the basics, let's move on to the different meanings of the phrasal verb 'lay off'....
MEANING 1: To terminate someone's employment
CEFR Language Level | B2 - Upper intermediate |
Usage | Medium |
Where is it used? | Everywhere |
Potential synonyms | To sack, to fire, to make redundant |
Separable? | Yes |
The first of the applications of the phrasal verb 'lay off' that we will look at is arguably the most common and means 'to terminate someone's employment'.
If you know anything about economics, you will be well aware that the economies of individual countries (and the world) go up and down over time. When economies are strong, there are usually lots of jobs for people and unemployment levels are low but when economies are not doing well, it can result in many companies terminating a lot of their worker's employment; when they do this, we can say "the companies lay the workers off".
We typically use 'lay off' in this way to talk about any time that a company is no longer able to employ a worker. This isn't always because the economy is bad; it can also be caused by changes in the industry or sector that a company is involved in, structural changes to the business or just a lack of work for an employee to do. 'Lay off' is normally used for these reasons and not for when an employee behaves in an improper or unacceptable way.
This action of laying someone off can be done on either a permanent or temporary basis.
On a grammatical level, this application of 'lay off' is separable. You should note however that if you are using a pronoun (him, her), it must go between 'lay' and 'off'.
The company had to lay off 200 employees after profits dropped.
Monica was laid off when the factory where she worked closed last year.
Due to budget cuts, several teachers were laid off at the end of the last school term.
Paul was laid off, but luckily he quickly found another job.
The airline temporarily laid off hundreds of workers during the Covid pandemic.
After the merger, many employees were laid off.
Debbie worries that she might be laid off next year.
The company announced it would lay off 10% of its workforce in a bid to cut costs.
Being laid off was stressful, but it gave Timothy time to rethink his career.
MEANING 2: To stop doing or consuming something
CEFR Language Level | C1 - Advanced |
Usage | Medium |
Where is it used? | Everywhere |
Potential synonyms | To stop, to pack in, to give up |
Separable? | No |
Let's now move on to our second meaning of the phrasal verb 'lay off', which is used almost as much as the first one and this is 'to stop doing or consuming something'.
Nouns commonly used with application....
|
Broadly speaking, we can use this second application of 'lay off' in several ways; with a noun to talk about a particular thing that we need to stop, with a verb to talk about an action and with a pronoun to talk about a person or people.
First of all, let's consider when we use it with a noun. Typically, 'lay off' is used for nouns for things that we eat, drink, consume or use on a regular basis and which we may need to stop every so often, either temporarily or permanently. These include things that are bad for our health e.g. fatty food or cigarettes or things that we may need to stop for a period of time due to illness or injury e.g. exercise.
This is typically heard when someone has been consuming too much of the thing that they are laying off and is often used in the sense of giving someone advice or employing self control.
When we use 'lay off' with a noun in this way, the convention is that we add the definite pronoun 'the' before the noun that we are laying off, e.g. the alcohol. Note that when we say this, we are not speaking about a specific alcoholic drink or packet of cigarettes but rather alcohol and cigarettes in general, expressed as an uncountable noun.
My doctor told me to lay off the salt.
You should really lay off the caffeine before bed if you want to sleep better.
I’m trying to lay off junk food this month.
Sandra decided to lay off social media for a while.
John needs to lay off the alcohol for the sake of his health.
I’m going to lay off sugar starting from Monday.
Maybe you should lay off the energy drinks for a while.
As I mentioned earlier, we can also use 'lay off' with actions that we want to stop. If you know your English grammar, you'll know that a gerund is a form of a verb that functions as a noun and always ends in the 'ing' form. When you want to talk about stopping an action or not doing something again, you need to use 'lay off' plus a gerund to achieve this. Note that we use this application of 'lay off' less frequently with a gerund than with a noun.
You need to lay off complaining all the time.
Ben should lay off criticising everyone for a bit.
I’m trying to lay off staying up so late as I struggle to get up for work.
Maybe you should lay off checking your phone every five minutes.
Caroline decided to lay off spending so much money.
The police told Adrian to lay off drinking and driving.
Lastly, this second application of 'lay off' can also extend to 'laying off someone / people'. When used this way, it means to leave someone alone, to stop criticising them or being aggressive towards them. As such, using this application can sound quite defensive or protective and therefore it often appears in arguments and disagreements.
On a grammatical note, we cannot use this application separately, even with a pronoun like 'him' or 'her'; doing this will sound like the first application of terminating someone's employment.
Lay off him; he hasn't done anything wrong.
You need to lay off her; she’s already stressed as it is.
Lay off me, okay? I’m trying my best here.
The manager told the coach to lay off the players.
Lay off my brother; this isn’t his fault.
Why don’t you lay off them for a while? You're acting like a bully!
I wish my parents would lay off me about my grades; I'm trying my best.
MEANING 3: To pass a ball to a teammate
CEFR Language Level | C1 - Advanced |
Usage | Rare |
Where is it used? | British English |
Potential synonyms | To pass, to kick |
Separable? | Yes |
We have now come to our third and final application of 'lay off', which is one for those of you who play or watch football (soccer) and means 'to pass the ball to a teammate'.
I have to admit that I am not a football fan and therefore I had never heard of this application before researching this blog post but it appears that it is used fairly commonly when talking about football games.
To give you some more context with this one, 'lay off' is used specifically for when a football player kicks the ball to another player who is in a better position on the pitch, potentially then enabling the receiving player to try and score a goal.
It could also be used for instances in which one football player kicks the ball into an open space on the pitch so that another player on the same team can move into the space to intercept the ball and then try to score a goal.
Grammatically, this usage is separable with the word 'ball' going either between 'lay' and 'off' or after them. You could also use the pronoun 'it' here to refer to the ball, but when doing so, the phrasal verb must be separable. Moreover, it is also possible to 'lay the ball off to a teammate' or 'lay the ball off for a teammate'.
Bobby laid the ball off to his teammate at the edge of the box.
Kate controlled the ball and laid it off to the striker.
Instead of shooting, Martin laid off a pass to the winger.
The forward laid the ball off for an easy finish.
George received the cross and laid it off to a teammate behind him.
Ellie smartly laid the ball off rather than trying to dribble.
The midfielder laid it off into space.
BONUS: The noun 'lay-off'
Now that you are up to speed with the different ways to use the phrasal verb 'lay off', you should also note that we also have a noun that is derived from it: 'lay-off'.
For an explanation of this noun, we need to think back to the first application in the post for when people lose their jobs because a 'lay off' is simply the name for a termination of employment. As with the phrasal verb, this is normally due to economic or business reasons rather than misconduct.
The company announced a lay-off of 300 workers.
After the merger, several departments faced lay-offs.
Antonia received notice of her lay-off last week.
We have now reached the end of this post and I just want to say thank you for clicking on my post and reading it. I hope that you've enjoyed it and have been able to learn something new about the phrasal verb 'lay off'. If you enjoyed this post, please go ahead and check out some of my other posts.
Now it is YOUR turn. Can you think of a sentence yourself using 'lay off'. Write it in the comments section below if you can, or alternatively any comments, suggestions or feedback that you may have....don't be shy!!!
Sign up on the form below if you want to receive new blog posts directly by email every week as soon as they are published.
Also, if you found the post useful, please like and share it on social media. See you next time! James 😊
THE END