LIE ABOUT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does lie about mean? 

• LIE ABOUT (verb)
  The verb LIE ABOUT has 1 sense:

1. hang around idly

  Familiarity information: LIE ABOUT used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LIE ABOUT (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Hang around idly

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Synonyms:

lie about; lie around

Context example:

She did all the work while he lay around

Hypernyms (to "lie about" is one way to...):

idle; laze; slug; stagnate (be idle; exist in a changeless situation)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP

 Context examples 

He had a horror of destroying documents, especially those which were connected with his past cases, and yet it was only once in every year or two that he would muster energy to docket and arrange them; for, as I have mentioned somewhere in these incoherent memoirs, the outbursts of passionate energy when he performed the remarkable feats with which his name is associated were followed by reactions of lethargy during which he would lie about with his violin and his books, hardly moving save from the sofa to the table.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)