The cake had a thick ____ of rich chocolate frosting on top.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
A thick ____ of dust had settled on the old furniture in the attic, which had not been cleaned for years.
Word Origin & History
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 used by farmers, which had to do with soil. The connecting sense between the usual meaning of lair and the specialised farming meaning was: an area where cows typically rest, the ground being fertilised by their waste. Related to lie, ledger.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Sometimes, the underlying layers are exposed by erosion, revealing the story of the rocks like an open book."
— 2012, Chinle Miller, In Mesozoic Lands: The Mesozoic Geology of Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, Kindle edition:
"Right above the database access layer sits a number cruncher that performs any calculations that a particular request may require, such as computing a standard deviation. In many cases, this layer just forwards raw numbers."
— 2001, C/C++ Users Journal, volume 19, page 38:
"If fortune ever favoured any venturesome layer of bets, Tom Elliot was certainly the one that day."
— 1890, The Argosy, volume 49, page 183:
"“Mrs. Boast can’t have got all these from one hatching,” [Ma] said. “I do believe there’s not more than two cockerels among them.” “The Boasts have got such a head-start with chickens, likely they’re planning to eat friers this summer,” said Pa. “It may be she took a few cockerels out of this flock, looking on them as meat.” “Yes, and replaced them with pullets that will be layers,” Ma guessed. “It would be Mrs. Boast all over. A more generous woman never lived.”"
— 1941, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little Town on the Prairie: