Word.ws English Dictionary

staithe

UK/steɪθ/

staithe noun: a riverbank.

staithe: a riverbank
Image: Maurice Pullin, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

staithe (plural staithes)

  1. (UK, obsolete) A riverbank
  2. (UK, archaic, dialectal) A fixed structure where ships land, especially to load and unload; wharf; landing stage.
    • Trevithick's first use of steam traction on rail took place at Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorganshire, on a tramroad 9¾ miles long between the Penydarren ironworks of Samuel Homfray, and the staithes at Abercynon, where the worked iron was loaded into barges on the Glamorganshire Canal.1951 March, E. W. Twining, “The First Railway Locomotive”, in Railway Magazine, page 197
  3. (UK) An installation built at the railside or nearby for the storage of coal unloaded from wagons.

Synonyms of staithe

Forms of staithe

pluralstaithes
alternative formstathe
alternative formstaith

Origin of staithe

From Old English stæþ and/or Old Norse stöð (“harbor”).

Words that rhyme with staithe

Questions about staithe

What does staithe mean?
Staithe means a riverbank.
What part of speech is staithe?
Staithe is a noun.
How do you pronounce staithe?
Staithe is pronounced /steɪθ/ (UK).
What is the plural of staithe?
The plural of staithe is staithes.

Words near staithe in the dictionary

  1. stairworks
  2. Stais
  3. Staite
  4. Staites
  5. staith
  6. staithe
  7. staithes
  8. staithman
  9. staithmen
  10. staiths
  11. Stajic

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: staithe (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.

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