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Layer
Definitions
- 1 A surname.
- 1 A single thickness of some material covering a surface.
"Wrap the loaf in two layers of aluminum foil before putting it in the oven."
- 2 A person who lays anything, such as tiles or a wager.
"If fortune ever favoured any venturesome layer of bets, Tom Elliot was certainly the one that day."
- 3 thin structure composed of a single thickness of cells wordnet
- 4 A single thickness of some material covering a surface.; An item of clothing worn under or over another.
"It's cold now but it will warm up this afternoon. Make sure you wear layers."
- 5 A mature female bird, insect, etc. that is able to lay eggs.
"As for which hen we'll cull for next Sunday's dinner, we certainly won't eat Henrietta yet — she's still a prime layer."
Show 11 more definitions
- 6 a hen that lays eggs wordnet
- 7 A (usually) horizontal deposit; a stratum.
"I find seven-layer cake a bit too rich."
- 8 A mature female bird, insect, etc. that is able to lay eggs.; A hen kept to lay eggs; a breed of chicken bred to maximize laying output.
"“Mrs. Boast can’t have got all these from one hatching,” [Ma] said. “I do believe there’s not more than two cockerels among them.” “The Boasts have got such a head-start with chickens, likely they’re planning to eat friers this summer,” said Pa. “It may be she took a few cockerels out of this flock, looking on them as meat.” “Yes, and replaced them with pullets that will be layers,” Ma guessed. “It would be Mrs. Boast all over. A more generous woman never lived.”"
- 9 single thickness of usually some homogeneous substance wordnet
- 10 One of the items in a hierarchy.
"mired in layers of deceit"
- 11 A shoot of a plant, laid underground for growth.
- 12 an abstract place usually conceived as having depth wordnet
- 13 One in a stack of (initially transparent) drawing surfaces that comprise an image; used to keep elements of an image separate so that they can be modified independently from one another.
- 14 a relatively thin sheetlike expanse or region lying over or under another wordnet
- 15 One of the seven network switch pieces in the Open Systems Interconnection model: application, presentation, session, transport, network, data link, and physical.
- 16 An alternative keymap accessed through a modifier key or toggle.
- 1 To cut or divide into layers. ambitransitive
- 2 make or form a layer wordnet
- 3 To arrange in layers. ambitransitive
"Layer the ribbons on top of one another to make an attractive pattern."
Etymology
Appears at first glance to be from Middle English leyer, leyare (“a layer of stones or bricks”), equivalent to lay + -er. In which case, ultimately identical to etymology 2 below. For the pronunciation compare prayer. However, this word layer (referring to a thickness of a material covering a surface) has also been argued to be from a respelling of an obsolete sense of the word lair that was once used by farmers, which had to do with soil. The connecting sense between the usual meaning of lair and the specialised farming meaning was: an area where cows typically rest, the ground being fertilised by their waste. Related to lie, ledger.
Appears at first glance to be from Middle English leyer, leyare (“a layer of stones or bricks”), equivalent to lay + -er. In which case, ultimately identical to etymology 2 below. For the pronunciation compare prayer. However, this word layer (referring to a thickness of a material covering a surface) has also been argued to be from a respelling of an obsolete sense of the word lair that was once used by farmers, which had to do with soil. The connecting sense between the usual meaning of lair and the specialised farming meaning was: an area where cows typically rest, the ground being fertilised by their waste. Related to lie, ledger.
From lay + -er.
See also for "layer"
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Unscramble this word: layer