Beaches

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈbiːt͡ʃɪz/

Definitions

1. A natural expanse where sand or pebbles line the shore, offering a venue for water-related recreation and relaxation activities
2. Areas of coast covered with sand or small stones next to the sea or a lake where people often swim and sunbathe
3. Natural stretches of land made up of sand or pebbles that border oceans, seas, or lakes providing space for leisure and wildlife

Etymology: The surprising thing about "beach" is that it once meant a stream, not a shore. Old English "beċe" referred to a brook or running water, and the sense of a bank or sandbank came later in Middle English, when "bache" and "bæcche" were used for a bank of sand or gravel beside water. The seaside meaning grew out of that bank-of-water sense, so the coastline took the name of the stream that ran into it. The word's roots reach back to a Proto-Indo-European base meaning "flowing water," which passed through Proto-Germanic "bakiz," meaning "brook." That same ancestor produced a family of related words across the Germanic languages: German "Bach," Dutch "beek," Swedish "bäck," and Icelandic "bekkur" all still mean a brook or stream. English is the odd one out in having moved the word from the water itself to the land beside it.

Synonyms: shore, coast, strand, seashore, waterfront

Antonyms: land, inland, interior, mountain, desert