Gillingham

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A town in the county of Kent in southeast England, situated on the River Medway near Chatham
2. A market town in Kent, southeast England, lying along the banks of the River Medway
3. A historic English town in the Medway area of Kent, in the southeast of the country

Etymology: Gillingham is a place name rather than a common word, and its name records a family who once held the land. It comes from the Old English personal name Gylla, combined with the suffix "-ing", meaning "belonging to", and "hām", meaning "homestead" or "village". The result is roughly "the homestead of Gylla's people," a pattern found in many English place names that began as a settlement named after its founder or his household. Because "hām" was such a common element in Old English place names, it survives across the country, appearing in the many towns and villages whose names end in "-ham". The first part of the name is the more personal detail: Gylla was a real person in the sense that his name was given to his people's land, and that name has outlasted the Anglo-Saxon language that gave it.