bay

• enPR: bā, IPA^(key): /beɪ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪ

From Middle English baye, baie, from Old English beġ (“berry”), as in beġbēam (“berry-tree”), conflated with Old French baie, from Latin bāca (“berry”).

bay (plural bays)

1. (obsolete) A berry.
2. Laurus nobilis, a tree or shrub of the family Lauraceae, having dark green leaves and berries.
3. Bay leaf, the leaf of this or certain other species of tree or shrub, used as a herb.
4. (in the plural, now rare) The leaves of this shrub, woven into a garland used to reward a champion or victor; hence, fame, victory.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938:

     both you here with many a cursed oth, / Sweare she is yours, and stirre vp bloudie frayes, / To win a willow bough, whilest other weares the bayes.

   • 1771, John Trumbull, On the Vanity of Youthful Expectations

     The patriot's honours and the poet's bays.

5. (US, dialect) A tract covered with bay trees.
6. A kind of mahogany obtained from Campeche in Mexico.

• (Laurus nobilis): bay laurel, Grecian laurel, laurel, sweet bay, true laurel, bay tree
• (Garland symbolic of fame, victor): laurels

From French baie, from Late Latin baia, probably ultimately from Iberian or Basque badia. Displaced native Old English byht.

bay (plural bays)

1. (geography) A body of water (especially the sea) more-or-less three-quarters surrounded by land.
   • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 1, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:

     'Twas early June, the new grass was flourishing everywheres, the posies in the yard—peonies and such—in full bloom, the sun was shining, and the water of the bay was blue, with light green streaks where the shoal showed.

2. A bank or dam to keep back water.

• (body of water): gulf

From French baie, from Old French baé, masculine singular past participle of the verb baer, from Medieval Latin badō (“I am open”).[1] More at bevel, badinage.

bay (plural bays)

1. An opening in a wall, especially between two columns.
2. An internal recess; a compartment or area surrounded on three sides.
   • 2012, BioWare, Mass Effect 3 (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, OCLC 962368035, PC, scene: Normandy SR-2:

     Wrex: And Shepard--I like what you've done with the Normandy. Got tired of always hanging around the cargo bay before.

   • 2013 June 1, “Ideas coming down the track”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 13 (Technology Quarterly):

     A “moving platform” scheme […] is more technologically ambitious than maglev trains even though it relies on conventional rails. Local trains would use side-by-side rails to roll alongside intercity trains and allow passengers to switch trains by stepping through docking bays.

3. The distance between two supports in a vault or building with a pitched roof.
4. (nautical) Each of the spaces, port and starboard, between decks, forward of the bitts, in sailing warships.
5. (rail transport) A bay platform.
   • 1946 May and June, G. A. Sekon, “L.B.S.C.R. West Coast Section—3”, in Railway Magazine, page 149:

     There is a short bay at the west end of each platform, but neither is used for passenger trains.

6. A bay window.

From Old French bay, combined with aphesized form of abay; verbal form of baier, abaier.

bay (plural bays)

1. The excited howling of dogs when hunting or being attacked.
   • c. 1588–1593, William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, act 2, scene 2, lines 1–6:

     The hunt is up, the morn is bright and grey, / The fields are fragrant, and the woods are green. / Uncouple here, and let us make a bay / And wake the Emperor and his lovely bride, / And rouse the Prince, and ring a hunter's peal, / That all the court may echo with the noise.

2. (by extension) The climactic confrontation between hunting-dogs and their prey.
3. (figuratively) A state of being obliged to face an antagonist or a difficulty, when escape has become impossible.
   • 1697, Virgil, “(please specify the book number)”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], OCLC 403869432:

     Embolden'd by despair, he stood at bay.

   • 1832, [Isaac Taylor], Saturday Evening. […], London: Holdsworth and Ball, OCLC 2619891:

     The most terrible evils are just kept at bay by incessant efforts.

• at bay

bay (third-person singular simple present bays, present participle baying, simple past and past participle bayed)

1. (intransitive) To howl.
   • 1700, [John] Dryden, “Theodore and Honoria, from Boccace”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], OCLC 228732415:

     The hounds at nearer distance hoarsely bay'd.

2. (transitive) To bark at; hence, to follow with barking; to bring or drive to bay.

   to bay the bear

   • a. 1611, William Shakespeare, Cymbeline, act 5, scene 5, lines 222–223:

     Spit, and throw stones, cast mire upon me, set / The dogs o'th' street to bay me

3. (transitive) To pursue noisily, like a pack of hounds.

From Old French bai, from Latin badius (“reddish brown, chestnut”).

bay (comparative bayer or more bay, superlative bayest or most bay)

1. Of a reddish-brown colour (especially of horses).

• bay bolete
• bay cat
• Bay Horse
• bay lynx
• En

bay (countable and uncountable, plural bays)

1. A brown colour of the coat of some horses.

   bay:  

2. A horse of this colour.
   • 1877, George Nevile, Horses and Riding (page 105)

     […] browns are the soberest, bays are the worst tempered, and chestnuts are the most foolish.

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:bay.

• bay antler
• bay-beh
• abeyance
• badinage
• baize
• daphne
• voe
• Wikipedia article on bays in geography
• Appendix:Colors
• Wikipedia article on bay, the horse colour/color

• Aby, YBA, aby

bay

1. (Mpakwithi) barracouta

• Terry Crowley, The Mpakwithi dialect of Anguthimri (1981), page 185

• IPA^(key): /ˈbaj/, [ˈbaɪ̯]

Aphetic form of abay.

bay

1. Term of address to a male friend

Contraction of balay.

bay

1. (Urban Cebu) Pronunciation spelling of balay.

• IPA^(key): /bæi/

bay m (plural bayow)

1. kiss

• amm, abm
• cussyn

• amma, abma

bay

1. rich

From French bailler.

bay

1. to give

From Saint Dominican Creole French baye, French bailler.

bay

1. to give

• ba
• ban

bay

1. dog

• Anne Storch, Hone, in Coding Participant Marking: Construction Types in Twelve African Languages, edited by Gerrit Jan Dimmendaal

bay

1. buttock

• 1992, Rose Whitehurst, Noongar Dictionary, Noongar Language and Culture Centre (Bunbury, Western Australia)

Borrowed from Spanish paño.

bay

1. rebozo

• López Antonio, Joaquín; Jones, Ted; Jones, Kris (2012) Vocabulario breve del Zapoteco de San Juan Guelavía‎ (in Spanish), second electronic edition, Tlalpan, D.F.: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano, A.C., pages 13, 28

bay

1. bye; so long

From Proto-Bisayan *balay, from Proto-Central Philippine *balay, from Proto-Philippine *balay, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *balay, from Proto-Austronesian *balay. Cognate of Cebuano balay and Tausug bāy.

bay

1. house; home

• bayay (Surigaonon)

bay

1. rich, noble

From Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *balay.

bāy

1. house

From Ottoman Turkish بای‎ (bay, “rich”), from Proto-Turkic *bāy (“rich, noble; many, numerous”).

The meaning “sir, gentleman” was coined during the language reforms to replace bey.[1]

• IPA^(key): /ˈbɑj/

bay (definite accusative bayı, plural baylar)

1. (countable) gentleman
2. (title used for a man) Mr.

Used as a title, the word is usually capitalized and followed by a person's name, often his surname or full name (as in “Bay Ahmet Şık”). This is unlike the more traditional title bey, which is used after a person's name, most commonly just his given name (as in “Ahmet Bey”).

• bey
• beyefendi

• albay
• yarbay
• bayan

bay

1. (dialectal, otherwise dated) rich, wealthy

• zengin (rich)
• varlıklı (rich)

• yoksul (poor)
• fakir (poor)
• züğürt (poor)

• bayındır

• (Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [ʔɓaj˧˧]
• (Huế) IPA^(key): [ʔɓaj˧˧]
• (Hồ Chí Minh City) IPA^(key): [ʔɓa(ː)j˧˧]

• Audio (Ho Chi Minh City)

  (file)

From Proto-Vietic *pər, from Proto-Mon-Khmer *par; cognates include Muong păl, Bahnar păr, Pacoh pár and Mon ပဝ် (pɔ).

bay • (飛, 𠖤, 𩙻)

1. to fly (travel through the air)
2. to flutter (flap or wave quickly but irregularly)
3. to fly (travel very fast)
4. to fade away

bay

1. with ease; in a fast-paced manner

   cãi bay ― to bluntly deny

(classifier cái) bay • (𨭍)

1. trowel

See bây.

• bây

bay

1. (informal) you (second-person plural)

• mày

• "bay" in Hồ Ngọc Đức, Free Vietnamese Dictionary Project (details)

Borrowed from Spanish paño (“cloth”), from Latin pannus.

bay

1. handkerchief
2. scarf

• bay choꞌa ḻeꞌe
• güex̱oa bay

• Long C., Rebecca; Cruz M., Sofronio (2000) Diccionario zapoteco de San Bartolomé Zoogocho, Oaxaca (Serie de vocabularios y diccionarios indígenas “Mariano Silva y Aceves”; 38)‎ (in Spanish), second electronic edition, Coyoacán, D.F.: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano, A.C., page 5