ford

• foorth (obsolete, [14th century])

From Middle English ford, from Old English ford, from Proto-West Germanic *furdu, from Proto-Germanic *furduz, from Proto-Indo-European *pértus (“crossing”).

Cognate with firth and fjord (via Old Norse), Low German Föörd, Dutch voord, German Furt, Norwegian and Danish fjord, and more distantly with English port (via Latin). See also forth and Persian پل.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /fɔːd/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /fɔɹd/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• (rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /fo(ː)ɹd/
• (non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /foəd/
• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)d

ford (plural fords)

1. A location where a stream is shallow and the bottom has good footing, making it possible to cross from one side to the other with no bridge, by walking, riding, or driving through the water; a crossing.
   • 1808 February 22, Walter Scott, “(please specify the introduction or canto number, or chapter name)”, in Marmion; a Tale of Flodden Field, Edinburgh: […] J[ames] Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Company, […]; London: William Miller, and John Murray, →OCLC:

     He swam the Esk river where ford there was none.

2. A stream; a current.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 34:

     With water of the ford / Or of the clouds.

   • 1700, [John] Dryden, “Ceyx and Alcyone”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:

     Permit my ghost to pass the Stygian ford.

ford (third-person singular simple present fords, present participle fording, simple past and past participle forded)

A woman fording a river in Uganda (1)

1. To cross a stream using a ford.
   • 1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide:

     He named that place, for it was near her dwelling, and on the road between Balerynie and Heriotside, which fords the Sker Burn.

   • 1903, Mary Hunter Austin, The Land of Little Rain‎, Houghton Mifflin, pages 31–2:

     Since the time of Seyavi the deer have shifted their feeding ground across the valley at the beginning of deep snows, by way of the Black Rock, fording the river at Charley's Butte, and making straight for the mouth of the cañon that is the easiest going to the winter pastures on Waban.

   • 1982, Nadine Gordimer, “A Hunting Accident”, in A Soldier's Embrace, Penguin, page 59:

     Ratau drove with reckless authority through the quiet morning fires of his father's and forefathers' town and forded a river of goats on the road leading out of it.

   • 2016, Bruce McClure and Deborah Byrd, "EarthSky's meteor shower guide for 2016" in earthsky.org,

     Some who witnessed the 1966 Leonid meteor storm said they felt as if they needed to grip the ground, so strong was the impression of Earth plowing along through space, fording the meteoroid stream.

• dorf

from Old English ford, from Proto-West Germanic *furdu, from Proto-Germanic *furduz

ford

1. way

From Proto-West Germanic *furdu, from Proto-Germanic *furduz (“ford”). Cognate with Old Frisian ford, Old Saxon ford, Old Dutch ford, Old High German furt.

• IPA^(key): /ford/, [forˠd]

ford m

1. ford

• Middle English: ford, furd, foord
  • English: ford
  • Scots: furde, furd, fuird
• ⇒ English: Chelmsford (from a contraction of Ċēolmǣres + ford)
• → Proto-Brythonic: *forð (“road”) (see there for further descendants)

• IPA^(key): /vɔrd/

ford

1. Soft mutation of bord.