harbour

harbour noun: standard spelling of harbor.

Image: John Jennings, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

harbour (plural harbours)

(Commonwealth spelling) Standard spelling of harbor.
- In West Wales it has never been possible until recently to exploit the magnificent natural harbour of Milford Haven, for there was no industrial hinterland.1961 August, “New traffic flows in South Wales”, in Trains Illustrated, page 492

Verb

harbour (third-person singular simple present harbours, present participle harbouring, simple past and past participle harboured)

(Commonwealth spelling) Standard spelling of harbor.
- The docks, which once harboured tall ships, now harbour only petty thieves.
- The bare suspicion made it treason to harbour the person suspected.a. 1716 (date written), [Gilbert] Burnet, edited by [Gilbert Burnet Jr.], Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Time. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] Thomas Ward […], published...

Proper noun capitalized: Harbour

Harbour (plural Harbours)

A surname from English
A surname from French, variant of Arbour

harbour meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

harbour in Tamil

துறைமுகம், பேணி வை

harbour in Urdu

بندرگاہ, پناہ, سر چھپانے کی جگہ, پناہ دینا

harbour in Bengali

আশ্রয়, আশ্রয় দেওয়া, আশ্রয় লত্তয়া

harbour in Malayalam

തുറമുഖം, വച്ചുപുലർത്തുക

More languagesFewer languages

harbour in Kannada: ಬಂದರು, ರೇವು, ನೌಕಾ ನಿಲ್ದಾಣ, ಹಡಗುಕಟ್ಟೆ

Examples of harbour in a sentence

Its streets fan out towards the clifftops, and its sheltered North Landing harbours open-decked fishing boats, called 'cobles'.1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 188, about Flamborough:
If Moldova harboured even the slightest hopes of pulling off a comeback that would have bordered on miraculous given their lack of quality, they were snuffed out 13 minutes before the break2012 September 7, Phil McNulty, “Moldova 0-5 England”, in BBC Sport:

All 40 example sentences with harbour

Forms of harbour

Noun
plural	harbours
Verb
third-person singular present	harbours
present participle	harbouring
past participle	harboured
past	harboured
Proper noun
plural	Harbours
alternative form	Arber
alternative form	Harber
alternative form	Harbor

Plural of harbour: harbours

Origin of harbour

* As an English surname, from the noun harbour, British spelling of harbor. Compare Harbach. * As a French surname, variant of Arbour.

Words formed from harbour

Questions about harbour

What does harbour mean?: Harbour means standard spelling of harbor.
What is harbour in Tamil?: Harbour in Tamil is துறைமுகம், பேணி வை. See Harbour meaning in Tamil.
How do you use harbour in a sentence?: Its streets fan out towards the clifftops, and its sheltered North Landing harbours open-decked fishing boats, called 'cobles'.
What part of speech is harbour?: Harbour can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
What is the plural of harbour?: The plural of harbour is harbours.

Words near harbour in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: harbour (page history and authors); Harbour (page history and authors); harbour (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); harbour (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); harbour (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); harbour (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); harbour (Kannada Wiktionary) (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-harbour.wav.

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