bay
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
From French baie, from Late Latin baia, probably ultimately from Iberian or Basque badia. Partly displaced native Old English byht, whence bight.
Noun
bay (plural bays)
- (geography) A body of water (especially the sea) contained by a concave shoreline.
- This hotel has a great view across the bay.
- 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
- 'Twas early June, the new grass was flourishing everywheres, the posies in the yard—peonies and such—in full bloom, the sun was shining, and the water of the bay was blue, with light green streaks where the shoal showed.
- A bank or dam to keep back water.
Synonyms
- (body of water): gulf
Derived terms
particular bays and places named after bays
- Algoa Bay
- Back Bay
- Baglan Bay
- Barnegat Bay
- Barrow Bay
- Bay Bulls
- Bay City
- Bay County
- Bay de Verde
- Bay L'Argent
- Bay of Bengal
- Bay of Biscay
- Bay of Islands
- Bay of Plenty
- Bay of Quinte
- Bay Roberts
- Bay St. Louis
- Birchy Bay
- Blind Bay
- Brig Bay
- Byron Bay
- Canada Bay
- Carbis Bay
- Cardiff Bay
- Cardigan Bay
- Castlebay
- Colwyn Bay
- Conception Bay
- Cow Bay
- Cruden Bay
- Dalgety Bay
- Deadman's Bay
- Deep Bay
- Delaware Bay
- Dingle Bay
- East Bay
- Flat Bay
- Georgian Bay
- Glace Bay
- Goose Bay
- Guantanamo Bay
- Halibut Bay
- Hạ Long Bay
- Hampton Bays
- Hare Bay
- Hawke's Bay
- Holdfast Bay
- Hudson Bay
- Indian Bay
- Ise Bay
- Jervis Bay
- Jervis Bay Territory
- Jordan Bay
- Kuwait Bay
- Lake of Bays
- Largo Bay
- Little Bay
- Lodge Bay
- Logy Bay
- Loon Bay
- Lyme Bay
- Mahone Bay
- Mitchell Bay
- Morecambe Bay
- Moreton Bay
- Moreton Bay ash
- Nelson Bay
- Norman's Bay
- Normans Bay
- North Bay
- Northern Bay
- Notre Dame Bay
- Oak Bay
- Ormoc Bay
- Oyster Bay
- Pavlof Bay
- Pelly Bay
- Pevensey Bay
- Placentia Bay
- Pleasant Bay
- Point of Bay
- Prospect Bay
- Prudhoe Bay
- Pukerua Bay
- Red Bay
- Red Wharf Bay
- Robin Hood's Bay
- Rose Bay
- Round Bay
- Sandy Bay
- San Francisco Bay
- Scots Bay
- Shad Bay
- Shark Bay
- Shoal Bay
- Southern Bay
- Spaniard's Bay
- Spanish Ship Bay
- Spring Bay
- Spry Bay
- St Austell Bay
- St Brides Bay
- St Margaret's Bay
- St Mary's Bay
- Stokes Bay
- Suttons Bay
- Table Bay
- Terence Bay
- Thorpe Bay
- Torbay
- Totland Bay
- Trinity Bay
- Tumby Bay
- Walvis Bay
- Warners Bay
- Wemyss Bay
- West Bay
- Western Bay
- Whitefish Bay
- Whitley Bay
- Witless Bay
- Wool Bay
- Woy Woy Bay
Translations
body of water
|
Etymology 2
From Middle English baye, baie, from Old English beġ (“berry”), as in beġbēam (“berry-tree”), conflated with Old French baie, from Latin bāca (“berry”).
Noun
bay (plural bays)
- Laurus nobilis, a tree or shrub of the family Lauraceae, having dark green leaves and berries.
- Bay leaf, the leaf of this or certain other species of tree or shrub, used as a herb.
- A kind of mahogany obtained from Campeche in Mexico.
- (in the plural, now rare) The leaves of this shrub, woven into a garland used to reward a champion or victor; hence, fame, victory.
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- both you here with many a cursed oth, / Sweare she is yours, and stirre vp bloudie frayes, / To win a willow bough, whilest other weares the bayes.
- 1771, John Trumbull, On the Vanity of Youthful Expectations:
- The patriot's honours and the poet's bays.
- (US, dialect) A tract covered with bay trees.
- (obsolete) A berry.
Synonyms
- (Laurus nobilis): bay laurel, Grecian laurel, laurel, sweet bay, true laurel, bay tree
- (Garland symbolic of fame, victor): laurels
Derived terms
terms derived from bay (plant)
Translations
shrub
|
herb — see bay leaf
Etymology 3
From Middle English, from Old French baee, beee, from the verb beer (“gape open”), from Early Medieval Latin batāre. Compare Modern French baie. More at bevel, badinage.
Noun
bay (plural bays)
- An opening in a wall, especially between two columns.
- An internal recess; a compartment or area surrounded on three sides.
- 2012, BioWare, Mass Effect 3 (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Normandy SR-2:
- Wrex: And Shepard--I like what you've done with the Normandy. Got tired of always hanging around the cargo bay before.
- 2013 June 1, “Ideas coming down the track”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 13 (Technology Quarterly):
- A “moving platform” scheme […] is more technologically ambitious than maglev trains even though it relies on conventional rails. Local trains would use side-by-side rails to roll alongside intercity trains and allow passengers to switch trains by stepping through docking bays.
- A display unit in a shop or store, especially a large metal one
- parasite bay
- The distance between two supports in a vault or building with a pitched roof.
- (nautical) Each of the spaces, port and starboard, between decks, forward of the bitts, in sailing warships.
- (rail transport) A bay platform.
- 1946 May and June, G. A. Sekon, “L.B.S.C.R. West Coast Section—3”, in Railway Magazine, page 149:
- There is a short bay at the west end of each platform, but neither is used for passenger trains.
- A bay window.
Derived terms
terms derived from bay Etymology 3
- bay platform
- bay window
- bomb bay
- buggy bay
- cargo bay
- dry bay
- engine bay
- fire bay
- loading bay
- patchbay, patch bay
- sick bay
- squad bay
- tail-bay
- truck bay
Translations
compartment
|
Etymology 4
From Old French bay, combined with aphetized form of abay; verbal form of baier, abaier.
Noun
bay (plural bays)
- The excited howling of dogs when hunting or being attacked.
- c. 1588–1593, William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, act 2, scene 2, lines 1–6:
- The hunt is up, the morn is bright and grey, / The fields are fragrant, and the woods are green. / Uncouple here, and let us make a bay / And wake the Emperor and his lovely bride, / And rouse the Prince, and ring a hunter's peal, / That all the court may echo with the noise.
- (by extension) The climactic confrontation between hunting-dogs and their prey.
- (figuratively) A state of being obliged to face an antagonist or a difficulty, when escape has become impossible.
- 1697, Virgil, “(please specify the book number)”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
- Embolden'd by despair, he stood at bay.
- 1832, [Isaac Taylor], Saturday Evening. […], London: Holdsworth and Ball, →OCLC:
- The most terrible evils are just kept at bay by incessant efforts.
Derived terms
Translations
Verb
bay (third-person singular simple present bays, present participle baying, simple past and past participle bayed)
- (intransitive) To howl.
- 1700, [John] Dryden, “Theodore and Honoria, from Boccace”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
- The hounds at nearer distance hoarsely bay'd.
- 1905, Lord Dunsany [i.e., Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany], The Gods of Pegāna, London: [Charles] Elkin Mathews, […], →OCLC, page 92:
- For at the last shall the thunder, fleeing to escape from the doom of the gods, roar horribly among the Worlds; and Time, the hound of the gods, shall bay hungrily at his masters because he is lean with age.
- 1962, “Monster Mash”, Bobby "Boris" Pickett and Lenny Capizzi (lyrics), performed by Bobby (Boris) Pickett and The Crypt-Kickers:
- The scene was rocking, all were digging the sounds
Igor on chains, backed by his baying hounds
The coffin-bangers were about to arrive
With their vocal group, The Crypt-Kicker Five.
- (transitive) To bark at; hence, to follow with barking; to bring or drive to bay.
- to bay the bear
- a. 1611, William Shakespeare, Cymbeline, act 5, scene 5, lines 222–223:
- Spit, and throw stones, cast mire upon me, set / The dogs o'th' street to bay me
- (transitive) To pursue noisily, like a pack of hounds.
Derived terms
- bay at the moon
- hog-baying
Translations
to howl
to howl at
to pursue noisily
Etymology 5
From Middle English bay, bai, from Old French bai, from Latin badius (“reddish brown, chestnut”).
Adjective
bay (comparative bayer or more bay, superlative bayest or most bay)
- (especially of horses) Of a reddish-brown colour.
- 2003 January 8, Stuart Lavietes, “F. William Free, 74, Ad Man Behind 'Fly Me'”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
- Mr. Free also owned restaurants and bred horses. His bay gelding, Packett's Landing, won almost $800,000 in his five-year career in the late 1980's and early 1990's.
Derived terms
Translations
of reddish-brown color
|
Noun
bay (countable and uncountable, plural bays)
- A brown colour/color of the coat of some horses.
- bay:
- A horse of this color.
- 1877, George Nevile, Horses and Riding, page 105:
- […] browns are the soberest, bays are the worst tempered, and chestnuts are the most foolish.
Quotations
- For quotations using this term, see Citations:bay.
Translations
brown colour/color
|
reddish-brown horse
|
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
See also
References
Anagrams
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