Word.ws English Dictionary

Bradshaw

Bradshaw proper noun: a village in the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, Greater Manchester (OS grid ref SD7312).

bradshaw: a village in the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, Greater Manchester (OS grid ref SD7312)
Image: Donnanz, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Proper noun

Bradshaw

  1. A village in the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, Greater Manchester (OS grid ref SD7312).
  2. A village in the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale, West Yorkshire (OS grid ref SE0830).
  3. A hamlet in Longsdon parish, Staffordshire Moorlands district, Staffordshire (OS grid ref SJ9455).
  4. A hamlet in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, West Yorkshire (OS grid ref SE0514)
  5. A habitational surname from Old English derived from these places.
  6. An unincorporated community in Baltimore County, Maryland.
  7. A village in York County, Nebraska.
  8. An unincorporated community in Montgomery County and Roanoke County, Virginia.
  9. An unincorporated community in Logan County, West Virginia.
  10. A town in McDowell County, West Virginia.

Noun

Bradshaw (plural Bradshaws)

  1. (UK) A former railway guide and timetable published by George Bradshaw. Publication ceased in May 1961.
    • He was at breakfast at nine, and for the twentieth time consulted his Bradshaw to see at what earliest hour Dr Grantly could arrive from Barchester.1855, Anthony Trollope, The Warden
    • The "5th Mo. (May) 1939" issue of Bradshaw's Railway Shipping, and Hotel Guide for Great Britain and Ireland appears in a cream cover printed in blue and gold, and a prefatory note explains that, as 1939 is being celebrated as the centenary year of Bradshaw, it is intended to adopt this livery from...1939 June, “Railway Literature: Bradshaw's Guide”, in Railway Magazine, page 465

Verb

Bradshaw (third-person singular simple present Bradshaws, present participle Bradshawing, simple past and past participle Bradshawed)

  1. (ambitransitive) To navigate by following railway lines.
    • To all intents and purposes, we had either to map-read or Bradshaw our way across tens of thousands of acres of featureless, flat landscape.1944, Jerrard Tickell, quoting Gp Capt John Mitchell, Ascalon, London: Hodder and Stoughton, published 1964, page 88
    • Near-synonym: IFR

Forms of Bradshaw

Proper noun
alternative formBrayshaw
Noun
pluralBradshaws
Verb
third-person singular presentBradshaws
present participleBradshawing
past participleBradshawed
pastBradshawed

Origin of Bradshaw

From Old English brād + sceaga (“thicket”), equivalent to broad + shaw.

Questions about Bradshaw

What does Bradshaw mean?
Bradshaw means a village in the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, Greater Manchester (OS grid ref SD7312).
What part of speech is Bradshaw?
Bradshaw can be a proper noun, a noun or a verb.

Words near Bradshaw in the dictionary

  1. bradoons
  2. bradoriid
  3. bradoriids
  4. bradree
  5. brads
  6. Bradshaw
  7. Bradshaws
  8. Bradsher
  9. Bradshers
  10. bradsot
  11. Bradstreet

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Bradshaw (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:

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