Also 4 lay(e)ry. [f. LAIR sb.2 + -Y1.] † a. Earthly, filthy (obs.). b. Boggy, miry, swampy.
a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter xvii[i]. 36 [32]. I lepe ouer all þe thorny and þe lairy besynes of þis warld. Ibid. (c. 1340), Prose Tr. (1866), 13. All þat it duellis in it lyftes abowne layery lustes and vile couaytes.
17[?]. Donald & Flora, 19 (Jam.). Did ony [ewes] … Come near the lairy springs.
1855. Morton, Cycl. Agric., II. 724. Lairy (Scot.) wet, swampy.
1897. Crockett, Lads’ Love, xxix. 290. Wallowing mid-thigh in the lairy depths of the Muckle Flowe.
