lay open

lay open

1. To expose. The investigation has laid open a lot of questions about the campaign. The job fair really laid open some opportunities for me.
2. To make vulnerable to something; to expose to something. Often used in the form "lay (one) open to (something)." These terms of service lay us open to lawsuits, so we need to update them right away.
See also: lay, open
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

lay open

Expose; also, make vulnerable to. For example, The audit laid open some suspicious dealings, or She had not laid herself open to any charge of wrongdoing. The first usage dates from the mid-1500s, the second from the mid-1800s. Also see leave open.
See also: lay, open
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
See also:
  • get laid
  • lay
  • be laid to rest
  • lay a (heavy) trip on (one)
  • lay a heavy trip on someone
  • lay a trip on
  • lay a trip on someone
  • lay something waste
  • lay waste
  • lay (something) waste
References in periodicals archive
Daily painful wound care and the slow process of secondary healing are the main disadvantages of open techniques, namely lay open.
RHOMBOID FLAP FOR PILONIDAL SINUS- OUR EXPERIENCE
The admission could lay open 14 police forces to massive compensation bills.
Police push terror-hunt law too far; MISTAKES
The silver-hinged vault lay open for deposits of dust.
Ghost Hours
Not one to lay open a problem without providing a solution, Firestein outlines numerous steps corporations can take to honestly build positive lasting reputations, to their own and society's benefit.
Crisis of character; building corporate reputation in the age of skepticism
So we felt we had to speedily consider what options lay open to us.
Letter: Viewpoints - Praise for our local hospital
yet to do the subject justice would be nothing less than to lay open the religious constitutions of the whole country and many transactions which deeply affect the characters of many noted men.
Fundamentalism
Documents displayed in a nearby vitrine established ties to other artists such as Robert Smithson, whose 1969 Artforum article on his Yucatan mirror displacements lay open, featuring a claim Mendieta easily could have made about her own work: "The displacement was in the ground, not on it."
Ana Mendieta: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC