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''bay'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''bay'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260313192153-00-⌔

bay - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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.
    • ✤ ‘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.1
  • A bank or dam to keep back water.

Noun

bay (countable and uncountable, plural bays)

  • (countable) A tree or shrub of species Laurus nobilis (family Lauraceae), having dark green leaves and berries.
  • (uncountable) Bay leaf, the leaf of this or certain other species of tree or shrub, used as a herb.
  • (uncountable) Mahogany of species Swietenia macrophylla 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.
    • ✤ 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.2
    • ✤ The patriot’s honours and the poet’s bays.3
  • (US, dialect) A tract covered with bay trees.
  • (obsolete) A berry.

Noun

bay (plural bays)

  • An opening in a wall, especially between two columns.
  • An internal recess; a compartment or area surrounded on three sides.
    • ✤ Wrex: And Shepard—I like what you’ve done with the Normandy. Got tired of always hanging around the cargo bay before.4
    • ✤ 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.5
  • A display unit in a shop or store, especially a large metal one.
    • ✤ *end bay *
    • ✤ *gondola bay *
    • ✤ *wall bay *
  • A section of ceiling delineated by supports such as rafters or vaulting ribs.
  • (nautical) Each of the spaces, port and starboard, between decks, forward of the bitts, in sailing warships.
  • (rail transport) A bay platform.
    • ✤ There is a short bay at the west end of each platform, but neither is used for passenger trains.6
  • A bay window.
  • A room for editing video footage or physical film.

Noun

bay (countable and uncountable, plural bays)

  • The excited howling of dogs when hunting or being attacked.
    • ✤ 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.7
  • (by extension) The climactic confrontation between hunting-dogs and their prey.
  • This term needs a definition. Please help out and add a definition, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.
    • ✤ “Even with a lion—handled it?”
      “In such cases he required the services of a keeper, who brought the animal to bay while Vidal exercised his own particular gifts […]”      8
  • (uncountable, figuratively) A state of being obliged to face an antagonist or a difficulty, when escape has become impossible.
    • ✤ Embolden’d by despair, he stood at bay.9
    • ✤ The most terrible evils are just kept at bay by incessant efforts.10

Verb

bay (third-person singular simple present bays, present participle baying, simple past and past participle bayed)

  • (intransitive) To howl.
    • ✤ The hounds at nearer distance hoarsely bay’d.11
    • ✤ 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.12
    • ✤ 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.      13
  • (transitive) To bark at; hence, to follow with barking; to bring or drive to bay.
    • ✤ to bay the bear
    • ✤ Spit, and throw stones, cast mire upon me, set/The dogs o’th’ street to bay me14
  • (transitive) To pursue noisily, like a pack of hounds.

Adjective

bay (comparativebayer or more bay, superlativebayest or most bay)

  • (especially of horses) Of a reddish-brown colour with a black mane and tail.
    • ✤ 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.15

Noun

bay (countable and uncountable, plural bays)

  • A brown colour/color of the coat of some horses.
    • ✤ bay:
  • A horse of this color.
    • ✤ […] browns are the soberest, bays are the worst tempered, and chestnuts are the most foolish.16

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA: /ˈbeɪ̯/
    • Audio (US): 🔊
      • (monophthongization) IPA: /ˈbeː/
  • (Australian, New Zealand) IPA: /ˈbæ̝ɪ̯/
  • Rhymes: -eɪ
  • Homophones: bey; bae (toe–tow merger)

Etymology 1

From French baie, from Late Latin baia, probably ultimately from Iberian or Basque badia. Partly displaced native Old English byht, whence bight.

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”).

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.

Etymology 4

From the root ﹡bai,17 combined with aphetized form of abay; verbal form of baier, abaier.

Etymology 5

🖼️ ➺

From Middle English bay, bai, from Old French bai, from Latin badius (“reddish brown, chestnut”).

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC: ↩

  2. 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC: ↩

  3. 1771, John Trumbull, On the Vanity of Youthful Expectations: ↩

  4. 2012, BioWare, Mass Effect 3 (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Normandy SR-2: ↩

  5. 2013 June 1, “Ideas coming down the track”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 13 (Technology Quarterly): ↩

  6. 1946 May and June, G. A. Sekon, “L.B.S.C.R. West Coast Section—3”, in Railway Magazine, page 149: ↩

  7. c. 1588–1593, William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, act 2, scene 2, lines 1–6: ↩

  8. 1914, Ernest Bramah, Max Carrados: ↩

  9. 1697, Virgil, “”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC: ↩

  10. 1832, [Isaac Taylor], Saturday Evening. […], London: Holdsworth and Ball, →OCLC: ↩

  11. 1700, [John] Dryden, “Theodore and Honoria, from Boccace”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC: ↩

  12. 1905, Lord Dunsany [i.e., Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany], The Gods of Pegāna, London: [Charles] Elkin Mathews, […], →OCLC, page 92: ↩

  13. 1962, “Monster Mash”, Bobby “Boris” Pickett and Lenny Capizzi (lyrics), performed by Bobby (Boris) Pickett and The Crypt-Kickers: ↩

  14. a. 1611, William Shakespeare, Cymbeline, act 5, scene 5, lines 222–223: ↩

  15. 2003 January 8, Stuart Lavietes, “F. William Free, 74, Ad Man Behind ‘Fly Me’”, in The New York Times ‎, →ISSN: ↩

  16. 1877, George Nevile, Horses and Riding, page 105: ↩

  17. Etymology and history of “aboyer”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012 ↩

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