Word.ws English Dictionary

Northampton

/nɔːˈθæmptən/

Northampton proper noun: a large town, the county town of Northamptonshire, now in West Northamptonshire district, England.

Proper noun

Northampton

  1. A large town, the county town of Northamptonshire, now in West Northamptonshire district, England.
  2. A former borough in Northamptonshire, abolished on 1 April 2021 and merged into the district of West Northamptonshire.
  3. A civil parish with a town council in West Northamptonshire district, county of Northamptonshire, first elected in 2021, believed to be the largest town with a town council in England.
  4. A city, the county seat of Hampshire County, Massachusetts.
    • Northampton is a town of just 30,000 people, with only five distinct neighborhoods. But stats like that obscure the fact that Northampton has long punched above its weight, culturally.2025 August 19, Jeanne Bonner, “This independent haven is a ‘tangibly different’ college town”, in CNN, archived from the original on 30 Dec 2025
  5. A town in Fulton County, New York.
  6. A hamlet and census-designated place in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York.
  7. A township in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
  8. A borough in Northampton County, Pennsylvania.
  9. A township in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
  10. A parish and community in Carleton County, New Brunswick, Canada.
  11. A town, the seat of the Shire of Northampton, Western Australia, named after John Hampton.
  12. A local government area north of Geraldton, Western Australia; in full, the Shire of Northampton.

Origin of Northampton

From Old English Norþhāmtūn, equivalent to north + Hampton. The earliest reference to Northampton in writing occurred in 914 under the name Ham tune. The Domesday Book (1086) records the town as Northantone: the prefix “North” was added later to distinguish it from other towns called “Hampton”, most prominently Southampton.

Words formed from Northampton

Questions about Northampton

What does Northampton mean?
Northampton means a large town, the county town of Northamptonshire, now in West Northamptonshire district, England.
What part of speech is Northampton?
Northampton is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce Northampton?
Northampton is pronounced /nɔːˈθæmptən/ (UK).

Words near Northampton in the dictionary

  1. northabout
  2. Northall
  3. Northallerton
  4. Northalls
  5. Northam
  6. Northampton
  7. Northampton County
  8. Northamptonian
  9. Northamptonians
  10. Northamptonshire
  11. Northams

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Northampton (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:

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

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