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BAY (1),
a reddish brown. (F.,—L.) M.E. bay; 'a stede bay,'
a bay horse; Chaucer, C. T. 2159.—O.F. bai.—Lat. badius,
bay-coloured, in Varro. Der. bay-ard (a bay-horse); baize,
q.v. BAY (2),
a kind of laurel-tree; prop. a berry-tree. (F.,—L.) 'The
roiall lawrel is a very tal and big tree, with leaves also as large in
proportion, and the baies or berries (baccæ) that it beareth are
nothing [not at all] sharp, biting, and unpleasant in taste;' Holland's Pliny,
b. xv. c. 30. 'Bay, frute, bacca;' Prompt. Parv.—F.
baie, a
berry.—Lat. bacca, a berry. + Lithuanian bapka, a laurel-berry; Fick, i.
683.
BAY (3),
an inlet of the sea; a recess. (F.,—L.) Bay
occurs in Surrey, tr. of the Æneid, bk. ii (R.)—F. baie, an inlet.—Lat.
baia, in Isidore of Seville; see Brachet. + Gaelic bàdh, bàgh, a bay, harbour.
β. From the sense of 'inlet,' the word came to mean 'a recess' in a
building. 'Heȝe houses withinne the halle,... So brod bilde in a
bay, that blonkkes myȝt renne;' Allit. Poems, ed. Morris, B. 1391.
[※]
BAY (4),
to bark as a dog. (F.,—L.) 'The dogge woulde bay;'
Berners' Froissart, vol. ii. c. 171. Corrupted from a fuller form abay,
M.E. abayen, K. Alisaunder, 3882.—F. 'abbayer, to bark or
bay at;' Cot.—Lat. ad, prefix, at; and baubari, to yelp;
Lucretius, v. 1079. See aboyer in Brachet. B.
The Lat. baubari, to yelp, appears in a simpler form in bubulare,
to screech as an owl, bubo, an owl, pointing to an earlier bubere,
to utter a hollow sound; Fick, i. 685; s.v. bub. The word is
doubtless imitative; cf. babble, barbarous. BAY
(5), in phr. at bay.
(F.,—L.) 'He followed the chace of an hert, and... broughte
hym to a bay;' Fabyan, Chron. c. 127. Here 'to a bay'
is really a corruption of 'to abay;' cf. 'Wher hy hym myghte so hound abaye'
= where they might hold him at bay as a dog does; King Alisaunder, ed. Weber,
3882; see also abaye in Halliwell; and see further below.—F. abois,
abbois. Cotgrave says—'a stag is said rendre les abbois
when, weary of running, he turns upon the hounds, and holds them at, or puts
them to, a bay.' The same is also expressed by the phrase être
aux abois; see aboi in Brachet. The original sense of aboi is
the bark of a dog. Cotgrave has 'Abbay, the barking or baying of
dogs;' 'Abbois, barkings, bayings.' See Bay (4), to bark.
ERRATA BAY
(3), an inlet of the sea; a recess. (F.,—L.)
There is great difficulty about this word. (1) We are certain that bay
(of the sea) is from F. baie, with the same sense, of which word Littré
gives no history. (2) We are certain that bay (in a building) is
from F. baie, used as an architectural term. The difficulty is
rather with the French words. My former view was that the words are
identical, and I referred both to the Low Lat. baia, of which not much is
known. Littré separates the words, referring baie (in architecture)
to the F. bayer, to gape; whilst baie, a gulf, is supposed by him to be
connected with the Latin Baiæ. Whether the words are really
connected is a doubtful point; but, if we approach the etymology on the easier
side first, we may at once decide (with Littré and Scheler) that the
architectural term, spelt baee in the twelfth century, is from the verb bayer,
to gape, and meant, originally, 'an opening,' and hence, the space between the
arches in a building, a division or partition; cf. prov. E. bay, a partition in
a barn, &c. (see Halliwell). In fact, we find the Anglo-French baee, with the very sense of 'gap,' in Philip de Thaun, Livre des Creatures, l.
38. The F. bayer, O.F. baer, answers to Ital. badare, Prov.
badar,
to wait expectantly, orig. 'to gape idlie vp and downe' (Florio); all from a Low
Lat. badare, to gape. The Ital. stare a bada, to stand with open
mouth, cited by Diez, suggests that the verb is of onomatopoetic origin; from
the syllable ba, expressive of gaping. This view is taken by Diez,
Scheler, and Littré. β. Next, we should note that the O.F.
baee
represents Low Lat. badata, and was orig. the fem. of the pp. signifying 'wide
open,' and hence 'an opening.' This clears up the architectural
sense of bay, and entirely agrees with Wedgwood's remarks, whose correction of
my article I thankfully acknowledge. But Wedgwood asks us to go
further, and to explain bay, a gulf, in a like manner. Scheler seems
to incline to the same view, but remarks that, if so, Isidore of Seville should
have used the form badia, not baia, when he said: 'Hunc portum ueteres
uocabant Baias.' However, the Catalan form of bay is really
badia
(see Diez) and the Port. bahia, a bay, points back to the same form.
Minsheu's Span. Dict. (1623) has 'Baia, or Bahia, or Baya, a bay, or creeke.'
We may either suppose Baias in Isidore to be a corruption of badias, or we may
suppose (with Littré) that Baias is merely copied from the Lat. Baiæ, in which
case it is even possible that this Baias is nothing but a place-name, and has
but little to do with the question. I now feel inclined to accept
Wedgwood's explanation to the full, merely putting a slight difference of form
between badia, a gulf, a derivative from bad-are with suffix -ia, and
badata, a
bay of a building, the fem. of the pp. of the same verb. To the form
badia may be assigned the same orig. sense of 'opening.' 'We may
specially note the application to the embouchure or outlet of a river, which may
conversely be regarded as an inlet of the sea: [as in] Telement
exploiterent que en la bee du fleuve de Albule furent arrivez' (Godefroy).—Wedgwood,
Contested Etymologies. Koolman, in his E. Friesic Dict., p. 78,
takes precisely the same view, deriving bay, in both senses, from badare.
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