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An excessive, arbitrary, or unlawful exaction; hence, a trick or deception put on laid on others; cheating; fraud; delusion; imposture. Reputation is an idle and most false imposition. Shak.

That which is imposed or levied; a tax, tribute, or duty; especially, a duty or tax laid by goverment on goods imported into a country. Even the ship money . . . Johnson could not pronounce to have been an unconstitutional impost. Macaulay.

), a kind of masonry employed in building walls, in which the stones were not squared nor laid in courses; rubblework.

Anything inlaid or imbedded.

mpanied with insult. How might a prince of my great hopes forget So great indignities you laid upon me Shak. A person of so great place and worth constrained to endure so foul indignities. Hooker.

his determination from his silence. To infer is nothing but by virtue of one proposition laid down as true, to draw in another as true. Locke. Such opportunities always infer obligations. Atterbury.

l surface; to diversify or adorn with insertions. Look,how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold. Shak. But these things are . . . borrowed by the monks to inlay their story. Milton.

lural, the inner parts or organs of the body; the viscera. Jer. Taylor. Then sacrificing, laid the inwards and their fat. Milton.

The clothes ironed. Ironing board, a flat board, upon which clothes are laid being ironed.

To bring (a vessel) so close to the wind that half her upper sails are laid aback. W. C. Russell.

and cries: Do you see Yonder well- favored youth Donne. Sudden I jogged Ulysses, who was laid Fast by my side. Pope.

r affecting two or more; held in common; as, joint property; a joint bond. A joint burden laid upon us all. Shak. Joint committee (Parliamentary Practice), a committee composed of members of the two houses of a legislative body, for the appointment of which concurrent resolutions of the two houses are necessary. Cushin…

A piece of timber laid horizontally, or nearly so, to which the planks of the floor, or the laths or furring strips of a ceiling, are nailed; -- called, according to its position or use, binding joist, bridging joist, ceiling joist, trimming joist, etc. See Illust. of Double-framed floor, under Double, a.…

A piece of timber in a ship laid on the middle of the floor timbers over the keel, and binding the floor timbers to the keel; in iron vessels, a structure of plates, situated like the keelson of a timber ship. Cross keelson, a similar structure lying athwart the main keelson, to support the engines and boilers.…

jon. See Illust. of Castle. The prison strong, Within whose keep the captive knights were laid. Dryden. The lower chambers of those gloomy keeps. Hallam. I think . . . the keep, or principal part of a castle, was so called because the lord and his domestic circle kept, abode, or lived there. M. A. Lower.…

The last board of a floor when laid down.

ll to knell for thee. Beau. & Fl. Yet all that poets sing, and grief hath known, Of hopes laid waste, knells in that word, "alone". Ld. Lytton.

A pattern or design representing a maze, -- often inlaid in the tiled floor of a church, etc.

but now also made in immense quantities in the United States; -- so called from its being laid up or stored for some months before use.

the surface of, before roasting; as, to lard poultry. And larded thighs on loaded altars laid. Dryden.