also 5–7 baye. [a. F. baie:—late L. baia, in Isidore, c. 640 (Isidore illustrates his derivation of portus from portare by the analogy of baia from bajulare. He does not consider baia a modern word; but says it made its genitive in -as, like familia. It may thus be an old word in popular Latin.) The meaning of the Fr. word (which the Eng. follows) may have been modified by confusion with baee, bee, on L. type *badāta an opening (see BAY sb.3). The two have certainly been associated in English; see esp. 2–4, where the senses of recess and projection appear.
Derivation from badare, to be open (see BAY sb.3) is disproved by It. baja, unless this is borrowed from some other Romanic language, as Sp. or Fr.]
1. An indentation of the sea into the land with a wide opening.
1385. Trevisa, Higden (1865), I. 57. In that grete mouthe and baye, beth ilondes Calchos, Patmos, and others.
1436. Pol. Poems, II. (1859), 186. Ffor they have havenesse grete and godely bayes Sure, wyde, and depe.
1596. Shaks., Merch. V., II. vi. 15. The skarfed barke puts from her natiue bay. Ibid. (1600), A. Y. L., IV. i. 211. My affection hath an vnknowne bottome, like the Bay of Portugall.
1685. R. Burton, Eng. Emp. Amer., ii. 54. A fair Sandy Bay or Beach, which the Sea washeth on one side.
1719. De Foe, Crusoe, I. 50. We might happen into some Bay or Gulph.
1875. Mackay, Mod. Geog., 24. Bay of Biscay, noted for its heavy seas and dangerous navigation.
fig. 1601. Cornwallyes, Ess., xix. Yet did I once touch at the baye of Armes.
1633. G. Herbert, Sunday, i. in Temple, 66. The couch of time; care’s balm and bay.
† 2. An indentation or rounded projection of the land into the sea. Obs.
[Perhaps a distinct word, f. BEY v. to bend; cf. BAYING.]
1611. Cotgr., Surgidoire, a road, gulfe, or bosome, of the sea … sometimes also the opposite, a Promontorie, Cape, or Bay of land entering into the sea.
3. An indentation, recess in a range of hills, etc.
1853. G. Johnston, Nat. Hist. E. Bord., I. 9. The hills … stand out generally well-defined by bays and vales, which run in about their bases.
4. (in U.S.): a. An arm of a prairie extending into, and partly surrounded by, woods. b. A piece of low, marshy ground producing large numbers of Bay-trees. Bartlett, Dict. Amer., 1848 (The latter ought prob. to come under BAY sb.1)
1884. W. W. Harney, in Harper’s Mag., March, 601/1. Swamp and ‘bay’ (the word applied in Florida to slough and water-grass meadows) amplify the area to 250 square miles.
5. Comb., mostly attrib., as bay-head, -man, -side. Also bay-duck, dial. (east English) name of the Sheldrake (Tadorna vulpanser); bay-floe, -ice, new-formed ice, such as first appears in sheltered water; Bay-state, popular name in U. S. for the State of Massachusetts, originally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., I. xxvi. 342. The big *bay-floe. Ibid. (1853), Grinnell Exp., xv. (1856), 109. The ‘young,’ or as it is called by the whalers, the *‘bay ice.’
1779. Hist. Eur., in Ann. Reg. (1781), 211/2. The *Bay-men on the Musquito and bay of Honduras shores.
1883. Burton & Cameron, Gold Coast, I. i. 16. The shallow brown waters of the *Bayside.
1856. Lowell, Biglow P., 37. I love our own *Bay-State.
