Amherst

Syllables: Am·herst/ˈæm.ɝst/

Amherst proper noun: an English surname. Also the ellipsis of Lady Amherst's pheasant.

Proper noun

Amherst

An English surname.
A census-designated place in Phillips County, Colorado.
A town in Hancock County, Maine.
A town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts.
A township in Fillmore County, Minnesota.
A village in Buffalo County, Nebraska.
A town and census-designated place therein, in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire.
A town in Erie County, New York.
A city and township in Lorain County, Ohio.
An unincorporated community in Marshall County, South Dakota.
A minor city in Lamb County, Texas.
A town, the county seat of Amherst County, Virginia.

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A town and village in Portage County, Wisconsin.
A town in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia, Canada.
A township municipality in Les Laurentides Regional County Municipality, Quebec, Canada.
A locality in the Shire of Central Goldfields, Victoria, Australia.

Also used as

Amherst is also the ellipsis of Lady Amherst's pheasant.

Forms of Amherst

plural	Amhersts

Origin of Amherst

From either Old English elm or Old Norse almr (“elm”) + Old English hyrst (“wood”). The town in Nova Scotia is named after Jeffery Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst (1717–1797).

Words formed from Amherst

Phrases with Amherst

Questions about Amherst

What does Amherst mean?: Amherst means an English surname.
What part of speech is Amherst?: Amherst is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce Amherst?: Amherst is pronounced /ˈæm.ɝst/.

Words near Amherst in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: Amherst (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-Amherst.ogg.

Cite this entry: “Amherst.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/amherst. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.