Meaning

noun a narrative song with a recurrent refrain

noun a narrative poem of popular origin

verb put into a certain place or abstract location

originInherited from Middle English lay, laye, laie, ley, leye, which may have multiple origins: * Potentially from *læġ-, an unattested variant stem of Old English lagu m (“sea, flood, water, ocean”), if transferred to a-stem inflection (compare Old English dæġ-, dag- (“day”) > Middle English day, daw-); compare plural Middle English lawes and lauen. If so, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *lagu…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0