How to Use lye in a Sentence

lye

noun

• He whose ball lyes farthest from the hole is obliged to play first.
  — Victor Mather, New York Times, 13 Mar. 2018
• Granny’s lard and lye soap could wash your clothes, hands, hair and anything else, and the recipe hasn’t changed much in a thousand years.
  — Tim MacWelch, Outdoor Life, 20 Jan. 2021
• One baker rolled out the dough, made from cake flour, lye water, oil and golden syrup, then broke off pieces.
  — Momo Chang, San Francisco Chronicle, 31 Aug. 2022
• The woman also told police she was forced to eat lye and was choked to the point of unconsciousness.
  — CBS News, 30 Jan. 2023
• Green olives will need to be soaked in a lye solution before brining, while black olives can skip this step.
  — Washington Post, 1 Sep. 2021
• Turns out that black women have to use lye and heat to straighten their hair and that’s not friendly at 1/6 gravity.
  — David Canfield, EW.com, 5 Nov. 2019
• Hominy is made from whole corn kernels, soaked in a lye or lime solution to soften the tough outer hulls.
  — Meredith Deeds Special To The Star Tribune, Star Tribune, 13 Jan. 2021
• The white oak floors were finished with a traditional soap and lye method, and walls are covered with three coats of plaster and two coats of wax.
  — Aileen Jacobson, New York Times, 6 May 2016
• The hacker briefly changed the levels of lye in the water to poisonous levels before an employee caught and stopped the hacker.
  — Kevin Collier, NBC News, 27 Jan. 2022
• Like, laundry-soaked-in-lye-soap-and-beaten-over-river-rocks-and-cranked-through-a-wringer-daily-for-several-years worn down.
  — Carolyn Hax, Washington Post, 31 Aug. 2022
• That decision was made, in part, because the lye did not leave the company site, Langley said.
  — Sara Sneath, NOLA.com, 27 Mar. 2018
• The corn kernels are soaked in lye or lime solutions and then rinsed several times, which removes the hulls and turns the inner kernels tender and plump.
  — Sheri Castle, Southern Living, 28 June 2021
• Inside the chemical reaction class, Claire Lee stirred a heated pot to combine a mixture of oils and lye.
  — Mike Glenn, Houston Chronicle, 17 June 2019
• Commonly known as lye, it is used to reduce the water’s acidity.
  — Peter Elkind, ProPublica, 17 Mar. 2021
• There’s a myth about never using soap in a cast iron skillet, which might have been true 100 years ago when soap had lye in it, but modern dish soap is just a degreaser.
  — Graham Averill, Outside Online, 12 Apr. 2018
• Maggie Vesey said soap is created by combining hard oils (like coconut oil) and soft oils with lye.
  — Erik S. Hanley, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 20 Oct. 2021
• Born in 1897, in Texas, the story goes that, when Johnson was young, his stepmother threw lye in his face out of spite for his father’s infidelity.
  — Dr. Sandro Galea, Time, 22 June 2017
• The mornings will see flaky turnovers filled with apples and cherries and German-style croissants given a lye treatment like pretzels.
  — Janelle Bitker, SFChronicle.com, 24 Feb. 2020
• In that one, which made headlines around the world, a hacker also gained access to a TeamViewer account and raised the levels of lye in the drinking water to poisonous levels.
  — NBC News, 17 June 2021
• Soap is made from lye and plant fats, ingredients that can damage your silk, leave behind residue, or remove one of silk's best features—its sheen.
  — Shivani Vyas, Better Homes & Gardens, 2 Nov. 2021
• Last year, a hacker broke into the network of a water-treatment plant in Oldsmar, Fla., and changed a setting to increase the amount of lye in the water to a dangerous level.
  — Catherine Stupp, WSJ, 26 Aug. 2022
• In a similar fashion to the candles, the ingredients are melted together — oils, butters and lye — to make the soap.
  — Erik S. Hanley, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 11 Jan. 2022
• The book, which was awarded a gold medal by the Swiss Gourmet book awards, contains recipes for lye breads (like pretzels), baguettes, Zopf and challah, including vegan challah.
  — Rachel Ringler, sun-sentinel.com, 23 June 2021
• These products contain lye, a chemical that seems to magically undo the curl of hair.
  — Jessica Firger, Newsweek, 23 Feb. 2017
• Now imagine ditching all those familiar little tubes and bottles and replacing them with one small bar of lye soap.
  — Catherine Womack, Los Angeles Magazine, 15 May 2018
• This process, which involves using lye and heat to break bodies down to their constituent elements—amino acids, peptides, sugars, and salts—is legal in more than a dozen states.
  — Eric Lach, The New Yorker, 4 Mar. 2023
• Soap, Ryan explained, consists of water, fat, and lye (or sodium hydroxide).
  — Jacoba Urist, The Atlantic, 9 June 2017
• Sodium hydroxide, also known as caustic soda or lye, is one of the chemicals to be stored at the location.
  — Phil Diehl, San Diego Union-Tribune, 5 May 2022
• Pretzels get their sheen and distinct texture from being dipped in a mild lye solution before being baked.
  — The Conversation, oregonlive, 26 Apr. 2022
• Aquamation uses lye, not acid, and similar fluids are flushed down the drain during the embalming process.
  — Michelle Weber, Longreads, 20 June 2018

Last Updated: 27 Jun 2024