Other forms: waylaying, waylays
To waylay is to lie in wait and stop somebody on their way. Waylay him on the road, waylaid by reporters, waylay a traveller.
The waiting is what distinguishes it — you cannot waylay somebody by chance. The modern use is often mild and comic, of being caught by somebody who wants to talk. The past is waylaid. It came from a Dutch word for besetting the roads.
1verbwaylayTo lie in wait and stop somebody on their way.
“Bandits waylaid the merchants on the mountain road and took their silver.”
waylay is an ambushing.
Way plus lay, probably after Middle Dutch wegelagen, lying in wait along the roads.
Middle Dutch
wegelagen — besetting of ways, lying in wait with evil or hostile intent along public ways
English, today
waylay
From way + lay, likely a Middle Dutch wegelagen (“besetting of ways, lying in wait with evil or hostile intent along public ways”). Compare Middle Low German wegelagen, German wegelagern (“to waylay; rob”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire