/biːt͡ʃ/, /bit͡ʃ/
OriginFrom Middle English bache, bæcche (“bank, sandbank”), from Old English beċe (“beck, brook, stream”), from Proto-West Germanic *baki, from Proto-Germanic *bakiz (“brook”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeg- (“flowing water”).
Cognates
Cognate with Cimbrian pach (“brook, creek, stream”), Dutch beek (“brook, stream”), German Bach (“brook, stream”), German Low German Beek (“brook, stream”), Luxembourgish Baach (“brook, stream”), Mòcheno pòch (“brook, creek, stream”), Vilamovian bāh, baoch (“brook, stream”), Danish bæk (“brook”), Icelandic bekkur (“creek, spring, stream”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk bekk (“brook, creek, stream”), Swedish bäck (“brook, creek, stream”); also Lithuanian banga (“billow, wave”). More at batch, beck.
- The shore of a body of water, especially when sandy or pebbly.
“Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path[…]. It twisted and turned,[…]and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn. And, back of the lawn, was a big, old-fashioned house, with piazzas stretching ”
- A horizontal strip of land, usually sandy, adjoining water.
“Up and down, the beach lay empty for miles.”
- Kent, UK, dialectalThe loose pebbles of the seashore, especially worn by waves; shingle.
- euphemisticSynonym of gravel trap.
- A dry, dusty pitch or situation, as though playing on sand.
“I never realised Lincoln was a seaside town. BRIAN LAWS Scunthorpe manager, after losing on a liberally sanded beach of a pitch”
“The series was brought to an ironic conclusion when England became hoist by their own petard, as they lost the deciding final Test on a 'beach' of a wicket. Neither side batted well.”
- euphemistic, form-ofEuphemistic form of bitch (taboo swear word).
“That beach should be punished!”
- intransitiveTo run aground on a beach.
“When we finally beached, the land was scarcely less wet than the sea.”
- transitiveTo run (something) aground on a beach.
“It seems that some honest mariners of Dover, or Sandwich, or some one of the Cinque Ports, had after a hard chase succeeded in killing and beaching a fine whale which they had originally descried afar”
“Great Aías led twelve ships from Sálamis
and beached them where Athenians formed for battle.”
- To run into an obstacle or rough or soft ground, so that the floor of the vehicle rests on the ground and the wheels cannot gain traction.
- countable, uncountableA surname.
““The commissioner does not affect the numbers,’’ Beach said. “They don’t collect the data. They don’t massage the data. They don’t organize it.””
- countable, uncountableA surname from English
- countable, uncountableA surname from landforms
- countable, uncountableA surname from German
- countable, uncountableA hamlet in Bitton parish, South Gloucestershire district, Gloucestershire, England, United Kingdom (OS grid ref ST7070).
- countable, uncountableAn unincorporated community in Ware County, Georgia.
- countable, uncountableAn unincorporated community in Webster County, Missouri.
- countable, uncountableA small city, the county seat of Golden Valley County, North Dakota.
- countable, uncountableAn unincorporated community on Lummi Island, Whatcom County, Washington.
Formsbeaches(plural) · beaches(present, singular, third-person) · beaching(participle, present) · beached(participle, past) · beached(past) · Beachs(plural) · Beaches(plural)