LYING

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does lying mean? 

• LYING (noun)
  The noun LYING has 1 sense:

1. the deliberate act of deviating from the truth

  Familiarity information: LYING used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LYING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The deliberate act of deviating from the truth

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

fabrication; lying; prevarication

Hypernyms ("lying" is a kind of...):

falsification; misrepresentation (a willful perversion of facts)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "lying"):

fibbing; paltering (a trivial act of lying or being deliberately unclear)

Derivation:

lie (tell an untruth; pretend with intent to deceive)

 Context examples 

Elizabeth thanked him from her heart, and then walked towards the table where a few books were lying.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Then his eyes fell on the things which were lying beside him; he read the letter, and knew from it all that had happened.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

And yet, I could not imagine him lying prone in death.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

His bed had also been slept in, but he had apparently gone away partly dressed, since his shirt and socks were lying on the floor.

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

Van Helsing is lying down, having a rest preparatory to his journey.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

But all pressing out of the room, in a crowd, to see what was the matter, we found her lying on the hall floor.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The greater the difference in temperature between both facial regions, the more likely the person is lying.

(The most reliable scientific model to date for detecting when a person is lying, based on thermography, University of Granada)

The nearly-complete fossil, which researchers have named Ambopteryx longibranchium, was spotted in 2017, lying in a rock formation dating back 163 million years.

(Second Bat-Like Dinosaur Discovered in China, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Savers consume very little energy in their activities and, therefore, the difference between sitting/lying or standing is practically nil for them.

(Spending more time standing helps increase energy expenditure and combats the effects of a sedentary lifestyle, University of Granada)

She was awakened by a shock, so sudden and severe that if Dorothy had not been lying on the soft bed she might have been hurt.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)