Word.ws English Dictionary

Thornley

Thornley proper noun: a village and civil parish in County Durham, England (OS grid ref NZ3639).

Proper noun

Thornley (countable and uncountable, plural Thornleys)

  1. A village and civil parish in County Durham, England (OS grid ref NZ3639).
  2. A village in Wolsingham parish, County Durham, England (OS grid ref NZ1137).
  3. (countable) A habitational surname from Old English.

Forms of Thornley

pluralThornleys
alternative formThorneloe

Origin of Thornley

From Old English þorn (“thorn, thorny bush”) + lēah (“woodland clearing, glade”). Equivalent to thorn + -ley (“lea”).

Questions about Thornley

What does Thornley mean?
Thornley means a village and civil parish in County Durham, England (OS grid ref NZ3639).
What part of speech is Thornley?
Thornley is a proper noun.

Words near Thornley in the dictionary

  1. thornless honey locust
  2. thornless honey locusts
  3. thornlessness
  4. thornlet
  5. thornlets
  6. Thornley
  7. Thornleys
  8. Thornliebank
  9. thornlike
  10. Thornock
  11. Thornocks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Thornley (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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Cite this entry: “Thornley.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/thornley. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.