bay
noun · verb
Simple meaning
a large curving inlet of the sea, or a reddish-brown color
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
bayIPA pronunciation (US)
beɪ
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
geography
A body of water (especially the sea) more or less three-quarters surrounded by land.
Bay leaf, the leaf of this or certain other species of tree or shrub, used as a herb.
A brown colour/color of the coat of some horses.
A horse of this color.
The excited howling of dogs when hunting or being attacked.
A bank or dam to keep back water.
verb
To bark at; hence, to follow with barking; to bring or drive to bay.
To howl.
To pursue noisily, like a pack of hounds.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A body of water (especially the sea) more or less three-quarters surrounded by land.
Used this way, bay is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use bay
- “We watched the sailboats gracefully glide across the quiet bay.”noun
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API (CC BY-SA 3.0). Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.