Other forms: inlays
An inlay is decoration set flush into a surface. Mother-of-pearl inlay, an inlay of brass, inlay on the fingerboard.
The material is let into a cut recess so nothing stands proud, which is what separates inlay from applied decoration. Guitar fingerboards carry position markers as inlay, and in dentistry an inlay is a filling made outside the mouth.
1nouninlayDecoration set flush into a surface.
“The wooden box had a delicate inlay of mother-of-pearl on the lid.”
inlay is a decoration.
Proto-Indo-European
*legʰ-
Proto-Germanic
*lagjaną — to lay
Proto-West Germanic
*laggjan
Old English
leċġan — to lay
Middle English
leyen
English
lay
English, today
inlay
From in- + lay. lay Middle English leyen, leggen, from Old English leċġan (“to lay”), from Proto-West Germanic laggjan, from Proto-Germanic lagjaną (“to lay”), causative form of Proto-Germanic ligjaną (“to lie, recline”), from Proto-Indo-European legʰ- (“to lie, recline”). Cognate with stq lääse (“to lay; to lie”), West Frisian lizze (“to lay, to lie”), cim leng (“to lay”), Dutch leggen (“to lay”), German legen (“to lay”), li lègke (“to lay”), lb leeën (“to lay”), Yiddish לייגן (“to lay”), Danish lægge (“to lay”), Faroese -, Icelandic leggja (“to lay”), Norwegian Bokmål legge (“to lay”), Norwegian Nynorsk legga, legge, leggja, leggje (“to lay”), Swedish lägga (“to lay”), Gothic 𐌻𐌰𐌲𐌾𐌰𐌽 (“to lay”), Old French laier, laiier, laire (“to leave”), Albanian lag (“troop, band, war encampment”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA