Ford

How to spell ford

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce ford

What does ford mean?

1. nounA shallow place in a river or stream where it is possible to cross on foot or by vehicle.
2. verbTo cross a river or stream at a shallow point.

Ford in a sentence

• noun

  The old ford near the mill flooded after the heavy rain.

• verb

  The hikers had to ford the stream where the bridge had washed away.

• noun

  Local walkers use the stone ford to reach the far bank.

• verb

  Farmers used to ford the river with their cattle each summer.

Where does ford come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a thoroughly native English word, coming straight from Old English 'ford', which named a shallow stretch of a river where the water was low enough to wade or drive across. It traces back to a Germanic root meaning 'to go through' or 'to pass over', a relative of the verb 'fare' (as in 'farewell' and 'thoroughfare') and a cousin of the German 'Furt', seen in the city name Frankfurt, literally 'the ford of the Franks'. The same ancient sense of passage links it distantly to Latin 'portus', a harbour or gateway. Because crossings were such important landmarks, the word became fossilised in countless English place names such as Oxford, Stratford and Bradford. The spelling has stayed remarkably stable for over a thousand years, which is why it looks and sounds so plain today.

How the word is built

• ford (Old English ford: a shallow river crossing); a simple, unanalysable native root with no prefix or suffix