lay bare

English

Verb

lay bare (third-person singular simple present lays bare, present participle laying bare, simple past and past participle laid bare)

1. To make bare; strip.
   • 1816, Lord Byron, “Canto III”, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Canto the Third, London: Printed for John Murray, […], →OCLC, stanza LVIII, page 34:

     And laid those proud roofs bare to Summer's rain—

2. (figuratively) To expose to view, reveal, uncover.
   • 1919, Boris Sidis, The Source and Aim of Human Progress:

     The central and centralized, imperial governments, guided by the big interests of the country, induced in their unfortunate subjects this last pestilential epidemic of military mania by means of a persistent course of direct and indirect suggestion in which the conditions of normal and abnormal suggestibility were specially emphasized, laying bare the social subconscious, stimulating in it the fear of invasion and attack by neighboring nations, stirring up the impulse of self-preservation, rousing the entranced, hypnotized mind of the populace to a frenzy of self-defense, while the junkers, the officers, the soldiers, the professors, the journalists of the middle-classes were entranced with beatific visions of world-dominion.

   • 2023 May 31, Mel Holley, “Network News: ASLEF recommends £71,000 pay deal for TfW drivers”, in RAIL, number 984, page 20:

     "This is further proof that ASLEF is willing to negotiate in good faith and modernise our railway. And further proof that the failure of negotiations with the TOCs in England is the responsibility of Transport Secretary Mark Harper, the Department for Transport, and the Rail Delivery Group. That has been laid bare for all to see."

Synonyms

• (to make bare): crack, open, unseal
• (to expose to view): nake; see also Thesaurus:reveal

Translations

reveal

• Catalan: revelar (ca)
• Dutch: blootleggen (nl)
• French: révéler (fr), découvrir (fr), exposer (fr)
• Galician: revelar (gl)
• Italian: rivelare (it)
• Latin: discooperio
• Polish: obnażać (pl) impf, obnażyć pf
• Portuguese: revelar (pt)
• Romanian: dezvălui (ro)
• Spanish: revelar (es), descubrir (es)
• Swedish: blotta (sv), blottlägga (sv)

References

• “lay bare”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “lay bare”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.