Bay

How to spell bay

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce bay

What does bay mean?

1. nounA broad, curved inlet of the sea or a lake where the shoreline recedes inward.
2. nounA defined section or recessed compartment within a larger structure, often for a specific use.
3. verbTo bark or howl with a long, deep cry, as a hound does.
4. adjectiveOf a horse, having a reddish-brown coat with a black mane and tail.
5. nounThe aromatic leaf of the laurel tree, used dried as a herb in cooking.

Bay in a sentence

• noun

  The fishing boats sheltered in the calm bay overnight.

• noun

  The lorry reversed slowly into the loading bay.

• verb

  The hounds began to bay as soon as they caught the scent.

• adjective

  She rode a handsome bay mare across the field.

• noun

  She dropped a single bay leaf into the simmering stew.

• noun

  Our hotel room looked out across a wide sandy bay.

Where does bay come from?

Language of origin: French

The cluster of meanings spelled 'bay' actually comes from several different sources that converged on one short word. The sense of a curved inlet of the sea entered English in the 1300s from Old French 'baie', which itself traces back to a Late Latin word 'baia' meaning a harbour or curved opening in a coastline. The architectural sense, an opening or recessed compartment such as a loading bay, comes from Old French 'baee', meaning a gap or opening, from the verb 'baer', to gape or stand open. The bay tree and its leaves come from Old French 'baie', meaning a berry, from Latin 'baca'. The reddish-brown horse colour comes from Old French 'bai', from Latin 'badius', meaning chestnut-coloured. Finally the verb meaning to howl, as in hounds baying, imitates the sound and comes from Old French 'abaiier'. These separate threads all settled on the modern three-letter spelling, which is why such different meanings share one word.

How the word is built

• single root 'bay' (no affixes); a short monosyllable absorbed from several distinct Old French and Latin sources that happened to converge on the same spelling