Layman
//ˈleɪmən// name, noun
name, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 Layperson, someone who is not an ordained cleric or member of the clergy.
- 2 a man who is not a clergyman or a professional person wordnet
- 3 Someone who is not a professional in a given field. broadly
"Carmen is not a professional anthropologist, but strictly a layman."
- 4 A common person.
- 5 A person who is untrained or lacks knowledge of a subject.
"should he be held to be just a layman, or does he have some art?"
Show 1 more definition
- 6 Lay-sister or lay-brother, person received into a convent of monks, following the vows, but not being member of the order.
Proper Noun
- 1 A surname.
Example
More examples"Much legal language is obscure to a layman."
Etymology
From Middle English layman, lay man, equivalent to lay (“non-clergy”) + man. Cognate with Old Frisian lēkmann, lēkmonn (“layman”), obsolete Dutch leekeman (“layman”), Old High German leihman (“layman”), Danish lægmand (“layman”), Swedish lekman (“layman”), Norwegian lekmann (“layman”), Icelandic leikmaður (“layman”).
Related phrases
More for "layman"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.