Keighley

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A market town in the City of Bradford district of West Yorkshire, England, known for its textile heritage and moorland setting
2. A town in the Bradford district of West Yorkshire in northern England, historically important to the wool and worsted textile industry
3. An English town within the City of Bradford metropolitan district in West Yorkshire, lying near the Pennine moors and once a centre of wool processing

Etymology: Keighley is a town in West Yorkshire, and its name is older than almost anything else about it. It first appears in the Domesday Book, compiled in 1086, recorded as "Chichelai" in Middle English spelling. That spelling shows how far the name has drifted: the modern "Keighley" keeps the same sounds in a different form, while the older record preserves a clearer trace of its parts. The name is built from two Old English elements. The first is a personal name, probably "Cyhha", the name of an early settler or landholder. The second is "lēah", meaning a woodland clearing or glade. Many English place names end in "-ley" or "-leigh" for this reason, and the combined sense is roughly "the clearing belonging to Cyhha." The word therefore began as a plain description of a local landowner's patch of cleared forest, long before it named a town.