Trafford

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester in northwest England, lying south-west of the city centre
2. An administrative district in northwest England within the Greater Manchester conurbation, south-west of Manchester city centre
3. A local government area in the Greater Manchester region of England, bordering the city of Manchester and known for its suburban communities

Etymology: Trafford is a place name before it is anything else. The surname and the Greater Manchester borough both come from a crossing point over the River Mersey, and the name records what people did there. Its first element is Old English "træppe", meaning a fish-trap, a device for catching fish in a river. The second element is "ford", a shallow place where a river could be walked or driven across. Put together, the name describes a ford where fish-traps were set, a useful spot for anyone who wanted both to cross the water and to take a meal from it. Because the name is so local, it is easy to assume it was once a grand title, but it is simply a description of the landscape. Place names built from a feature of the river and a word for a crossing are common across England, and the surname that later spread from them carried the same plain, practical meaning. The name is a record of a working riverbank, and its two parts still say exactly what the place was.