''at bay'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260831101554-00-⌔

at bay - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

🖼️ ➺

Prepositional phrase

at bay

• (set phrase, idiomatic) Unable to come closer; at a distance.
  • ✤ In that case the enemy himself could have occupied the defences of Corinth and held at bay all the Union troops that arrived.¹
  • ✤ These two books—of sacred, and secular, passages for memory—will serve other good purposes besides merely occupying vacant hours: they will help to keep at bay many anxious thoughts, worrying thoughts, uncharitable thoughts, unholy thoughts.²
  • ✤ The home side grew in confidence after keeping the visitors at bay and took the lead after only nine minutes, from their first foray into the penalty area.³
• (set phrase, idiomatic) Cornered; unable to flee.
  • ✤ The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay/Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay,—/“Now stab and end the creature - to the heft!”⁴
  • ✤ For a moment my gaze traversed the landscape beneath until it was caught and held by four figures near the base of the cliff—a human figure held at bay by three hyaenodons, those ferocious and blood-thirsty wild dogs of the Eocene.⁵
  • ✤ Instead of mounted riders following a pack of hounds, it is envisaged that just two dogs will be used to locate a stag and hold it at bay.⁶
• (heraldry) Of an animal, especially a docile animal in contrast to a predatory animal which would be blazoned statant: standing, in profile toward dexter, with all four feet on the ground. (If gazing at the viewer, the animal is at gaze.)

Etymology

From bay (“excited howling of dogs”).

Pronunciation

• Audio (Australia): 🔊

Printed 2026-08-31.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

1. 1886, Ulysses S. Grant, chapter XXIX, in Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant: ↩

2. 1889, Lewis Carroll [pseudonym; Charles Lutwidge Dodgson], “Preface”, in Sylvie and Bruno, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, page xv: ↩

3. 2011 October 23, Becky Ashton, “QPR 1 - 0 Chelsea”, in BBC Sport ‎${}^{[1]}$: ↩

4. 1855, Robert Browning, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, section XXXI: ↩

5. 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter X, in The Land That Time Forgot: ↩

6. 2004 November 22, Valerie Elliott, “Two-dog plan to keep law at bay”, in The Times: ↩