beach

From Middle English bache, bæcche (“bank, sandbank”), from Old English bæċe, beċe (“beck, brook, stream”), from Proto-Germanic *bakiz (“brook”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰog- (“flowing water”). Cognate with Dutch beek (“brook, stream”), German Bach (“brook, stream”), Swedish bäck (“stream, brook, creek”). More at batch, beck.

• (US) IPA^(key): /bit͡ʃ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /biːt͡ʃ/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːtʃ
• Homophone: beech

beach (plural beaches)

1. The shore of a body of water, especially when sandy or pebbly.
   • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 1, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:

     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 in front of it, and all blazing with lights. 'Twas the house I'd seen the roof of from the beach.

2. A horizontal strip of land, usually sandy, adjoining water.
   • 1988, Robert Ferro, Second Son:

     Up and down, the beach lay empty for miles.

3. (Britain dialectal, Sussex, Kent) The loose pebbles of the seashore, especially worn by waves; shingle.

• (shore, especially when sandy):
• (horizontal strip of land adjoining water): sand, strand, backshore

beach (third-person singular simple present beaches, present participle beaching, simple past and past participle beached)

1. (intransitive) To run aground on a beach.
   • 1941, Emily Carr, Klee Wyck, "Salt Water,"

     When we finally beached, the land was scarcely less wet than the sea.

2. (transitive) To run (something) aground on a beach.
   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, Chapter 90,

     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 off from the shore.

   • 1974, Homer, Iliad, translated by Robert Fitzgerald, Doubleday, Book Two, lines 530-31, p. 53,

     Great Aías led twelve ships from Sálamis

     and beached them where Athenians formed for battle.

3. (of a vehicle) 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.

• strand

• unbeached

• bache

Borrowed from English beach.

• IPA^(key): /bitʃ/

beach m (plural beachs)

1. (Congo) port where goods and passengers embark and debark
   • 2006 March 14, Tshiala David, Baisse du trafic au beach Ngobila entre Kinshasa et Brazzaville, in Le Potentiel:

     C’est ainsi qu’elles ont décidé d’embarquer leurs marchandises dans des pirogues motorisés qui desservent les beachs privés entre les deux rives du fleuve Congo.

     (please add an English translation of this usage example)

   • 2007, Jean-Alexis M'Foutou, La langue française au Congo-Brazzaville:

     Le Beach de Brazzaville hier réputé lieu de violence, de viols et de braquages, présent aujourd’hui des conditions de sécurité plutôt rassurantes.

     (please add an English translation of this usage example)

From Old Irish bech, from Proto-Celtic *beko-, *bikos (compare Middle Welsh beg-egyr, byg-egyr (“drone”)), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰik-, *bʰoyk- (compare Czech včela, Latin fūcus), enlargement of *bʰey- (compare Welsh by-daf (“beehive”), English bee).

• IPA^(key): /bʲax/

beach f (genitive singular beiche, nominative plural beacha)

1. bee (insect)

• "beach" in Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla, An Gúm, 1977, by Niall Ó Dónaill.
• “bech” in Dictionary of the Irish Language, Royal Irish Academy, 1913–76.

From Old Irish bech, from Proto-Celtic *beko-, *bikos, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰik-, *bʰoik-, enlargement of *bʰī-, *bʰei-.

beach m (genitive singular beacha, plural beachan)

1. bee
2. beehive
3. wasp

• seillean (“bee”)

• Faclair Gàidhlig Dwelly Air Loidhne, Dwelly, Edward (1911), Faclair Gàidhlig gu Beurla le Dealbhan/The Illustrated [Scottish] Gaelic-English Dictionary (10th ed.), Edinburgh: Birlinn Limited, →ISBN
• Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language, Alexander MacBain, Eneas Mackay, 1911

• “bech” in Dictionary of the Irish Language, Royal Irish Academy, 1913–76.