Word.ws English Dictionary

bay

/ˈbeː/UK/ˈbeɪ̯/

bay noun: a body of water (especially the sea) contained by a concave shoreline.

bay: a body of water (especially the sea) contained by a concave shoreline
Image: Montanabw, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

bay (plural bays)

  1. 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.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    gulf
  2. A bank or dam to keep back water.

Noun (2)

bay (countable and uncountable, plural bays)

  1. (countable) A tree or shrub of species Laurus nobilis (family Lauraceae), having dark green leaves and berries.
  2. (uncountable) Bay leaf, the leaf of this or certain other species of tree or shrub, used as a herb.
  3. (uncountable) Mahogany of species Swietenia macrophylla obtained from Campeche in Mexico.
  4. (archaic, in plural) 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.1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
    • The patriot's honours and the poet's bays.1771, John Trumbull, On the Vanity of Youthful Expectations
    Synonyms:
    laurels
  5. (US, dialectal) A tract covered with bay trees.
  6. (obsolete) A berry.

Noun (3)

bay (plural bays)

  1. An opening in a wall, especially between two columns.
  2. 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.2012, BioWare, Mass Effect 3 (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Normandy SR-2
    • 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.2013 June 1, “Ideas coming down the track”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 13 (Technology Quarterly)
  3. A display unit in a shop or store, especially a large metal one.
    • end bay
    • gondola bay
  4. A section of ceiling delineated by supports such as rafters or vaulting ribs.
  5. Each of the spaces, port and starboard, between decks, forward of the bitts, in sailing warships.
  6. A bay platform.
    • There is a short bay at the west end of each platform, but neither is used for passenger trains.1946 May and June, G. A. Sekon, “L.B.S.C.R. West Coast Section—3”, in Railway Magazine, page 149
  7. A bay window.
  8. A room for editing video footage or physical film.

Noun (4)

bay (countable and uncountable, plural bays)

  1. 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.c. 1588–1593, William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, act 2, scene 2, lines 1–6
  2. (broadly) The climactic confrontation between hunting-dogs and their prey.
  3. (figuratively, uncountable) 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.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
    • The most terrible evils are just kept at bay by incessant efforts.1832, [Isaac Taylor], Saturday Evening. […], London: Holdsworth and Ball, →OCLC

Verb

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

  1. (intransitive) To howl.
    • The hounds at nearer distance hoarsely bay'd.1700, [John] Dryden, “Theodore and Honoria, from Boccace”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC
    • 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.1905, Lord Dunsany [i.e., Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany], The Gods of Pegāna, London: [Charles] Elkin Mathews, […], →OCLC, page 92
  2. (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 mea. 1611, William Shakespeare, Cymbeline, act 5, scene 5, lines 222–223
  3. (transitive) To pursue noisily, like a pack of hounds.

Adjective

bay (comparative bayer or more bay, superlative bayest or most bay)

  1. (especially) 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.2003 January 8, Stuart Lavietes, “F. William Free, 74, Ad Man Behind 'Fly Me'”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

Noun (5)

bay (countable and uncountable, plural bays)

  1. A brown colour/color of the coat of some horses.
  2. A horse of this color.
    • […] browns are the soberest, bays are the worst tempered, and chestnuts are the most foolish.1877, George Nevile, Horses and Riding, page 105

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Bay

Bay

  1. A region of Somalia.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Bay

the Bay

  1. (abbreviation, ellipsis, informal) Ellipsis of San Francisco Bay Area (metropolitan area in California): a geographic region of California, United States.
  2. (abbreviation, ellipsis, informal) Ellipsis of San Francisco Bay: a bay of the Pacific Ocean in California, United States.

Proper noun (3) capitalized: Bay

Bay (plural Bays)

  1. A surname

bay meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Kannada

bay in Hindi

body of water
खाड़ी khāṛī

bay in Tamil

body of water
விரிகுடா virikuṭā

bay in Urdu

body of water
خلیج xalīj

bay in Kannada

ಬೇ, ಉಪಸಾಗರ
More languagesFewer languages
bay in Punjabi
ਖਾੜੀ khāṛī
bay in Gujarati
ખાડી khāḍī
bay in Nepali
बे, खाडी, उपसागर
bay in Tagalog
look
bay in Arabic
خَلِيج ḵalīj, شَرْم šarm, خُور ḵūr, جُون jūn, jōn
bay in Malay
teluk, perang kemerah-merahan, kuda perang kemerah-merahan
bay in Indonesian
kapisa
bay in Persian
خلیج xalij
bay in Thai
อ่าว àao
bay in Vietnamese
vịnh
bay in Myanmar
ပင်လယ်အော် panglaiau

Examples of bay in a sentence

  • Measure the depth of the water in this part of the bay.
  • The buoy bobbed between the crests and troughs of the waves moving across the bay.
  • They went all out for his eightieth birthday party and chartered a tour boat on the bay.

All 40 example sentences with bay

Synonyms of bay

All synonyms of bay

Forms of bay

Noun
pluralbays
Verb
third-person singular presentbays
present participlebaying
past participlebayed
pastbayed
Adjective
comparativebayer
comparativemore bay
superlativebayest
superlativemost bay
Proper noun
pluralBays

Plural of bay: bays

Origin of bay

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

From Middle English baye, baie, from Old English beġ (“berry”), as in beġbēam (“berry-tree”), conflated with Old French baie, from Latin bāca (“berry”).

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.

Words formed from bay

Phrases with bay

160 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with bay

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about bay

What does bay mean?
Bay means a body of water (especially the sea) contained by a concave shoreline.
What is bay in Hindi?
Bay in Hindi is खाड़ी (khāṛī). See Bay meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is bay?
Bay can be a noun, a verb, an adjective or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce bay?
Bay is pronounced /ˈbeɪ̯/ (UK).
What is the plural of bay?
The plural of bay is bays.

Words near bay in the dictionary

  1. Baxterians
  2. baxterization
  3. baxterizations
  4. baxters
  5. Baxters Ridge
  6. bay
  7. bay antler
  8. bay antlers
  9. Bay Area
  10. Bay Arean
  11. Bay Areans

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bay (page history and authors); Bay (page history and authors); bay (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); bay (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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:

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

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