• enPR: bā, IPA: /beɪ/

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

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 ↗:

     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

• French: laurier
• German: Lorbeer
• Italian: alloro
• Portuguese: loureiro, louro
• Russian: лавр
• Spanish: laurel

• French: laurier
• German: Lorbeerblatt, Lorbeer
• Italian: alloro
• Portuguese: louro
• Russian: лавровый лист
• Spanish: laurel

From French baie, from Late Latin baia, probably ultimately from xib - or Basque badia.

bay (plural bays)

1. (geography) A body of water (especially the sea) more-or-less three-quarters surrounded by land.
   • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC ↗:

     '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

• French: baie
• German: Golf, Bucht, Meerbusen
• Italian: baia, golfo
• Portuguese: baía
• Russian: зали́в
• Spanish: bahía

From Middle English, from Old French beee, from the verb beer, from la-eme bato.

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.
3. A display unit in a shop or store, especially a large metal one

   parasite bay

4. The distance between two supports in a vault or building with a pitched roof.
5. (nautical) Each of the spaces, port and starboard, between decks, forward of the bitts, in sailing warships.
6. (rail transport) A bay platform.
7. A bay window.

• French: compartiment, baie
• Italian: vano
• Portuguese: vão, baia
• Russian: отсе́к

• Portuguese: tramo, intercolúnio
• Russian: пролёт

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

bay (plural bays)

1. The excited howling of dogs when hunting or being attacked.
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, translated by John Dryden, The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC ↗:

     Embolden'd by despair, he stood at bay.

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

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

• French: aboiement, clabaudage

bay (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 ↗:

     The hounds at nearer distance hoarsely bay'd.

   • 1905, Lord Dunsany [i.e., Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany], The Gods of Pegāna, London: [Charles] Elkin Mathews, […], →OCLC ↗, page 92 ↗:

     For at the last shall the thunder, fleeing to escape from the doom of the gods, roar horribly among the Worlds; and Time, the hound of the gods, shall bay hungrily at his masters because he is lean with age.

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

   to bay the bear

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

• French: aboyer, clabauder

From Middle English bay, bai, from Old French bai, from Latin badius.

bay (comparative bayer, superlative bayest)

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

• French: bai
• German: rotbraun, kastanienbraun
• Portuguese: alazão
• Russian: гнедо́й
• Spanish: alazán

bay

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

    

2. A horse of this color.
   • 1877, George Nevile, Horses and Riding, page 105:

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

• Portuguese: alazão
• Russian: гнедо́й
• Spanish: alazán

• Portuguese: alazão
• Spanish: alazán, alazana

From Somali.

1. A region in Somalia.

From bay.

1. (informal) Ellipsis of San Francisco Bay Area metropolitan area in California; A region in California, USA
2. (informal) Ellipsis of San Francisco Bay; A bay of the Pacific

• Spanish: La Bahía

1. Surname