layer
Pronunciation: /ˈleɪ̯ɚ/
The English word “layer” has 13 meanings listed here.
noun
- A single thickness of some material covering a surface.
- An item of clothing worn under or over another.
- A (usually) horizontal deposit; a stratum.
- One of the items in a hierarchy.
- One in a stack of (initially transparent) drawing surfaces that comprise an image; used to keep elements of an image separate so that they can be modified independently from one another.
- One of the seven network switch pieces in the Open Systems Interconnection model: application, presentation, session, transport, network, data link, and physical.
- An alternative keymap accessed through a modifier key or toggle.
- A person who lays anything, such as tiles or a wager.
- A mature female bird, insect, etc. that is able to lay eggs.
- A hen kept to lay eggs; a breed of chicken bred to maximize laying output.
- A shoot of a plant, laid underground for growth.
verb
Etymology
Appears at first glance to be from Middle English leyer, leyare (“a layer of stones or bricks”), equivalent to lay + -er. In which case, ultimately identical to etymology 2 below. For the pronunciation compare prayer. However, this word layer (referring to a thickness of a material covering a surface) has also been argued to be from a respelling of an obsolete sense of the word lair that was once…
Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “layer” there
More English words
About this dictionary
The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.
Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.