Definition of "lay claim" [lay claim]

• To say that something belongs to oneself. (verb)

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• "But being unable to eat or drink or rest until he was at ease on the matter, he determined, all piety and law and decorum to the contrary not-withstanding, to look upon the faces of Ashimullah's wives with his own eyes, and determine for himself to whom the crown of beauty belonged, and whether the brown or the black, or the golden or the ruddy, might most properly and truthfully lay claim to it."
• "The Pine Streeters could lay claim to more solidarity."
• "To supply that charm of the familiar and homely, which Nature so readily adopts into a scene like this, the stage-coach was rattling down the mountain-road, and the driver sounded his horn, while Echo caught up the notes, and intertwined them into a rich and varied and elaborate harmony, of which the original performer could lay claim to little share."