ford
noun
a place where a river or other body of water is shallow enough to be crossed by wading.
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ford
1 American
[fawrd, fohrd]
/ fɔrd, foʊrd /
noun
-
fords
plural
verb (used with object)
-
fords,
present (3rd person singular)
-
forded,
past participle, past
-
fording
present participle
Ford
2
American
[fawrd, fohrd]
/ fɔrd, foʊrd /
noun
-
Elizabeth Bloomer Betty, 1918–2011, U.S. First Lady 1974–77 (wife of Gerald R. Ford).
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Ford Madox Ford Madox Hueffer, 1873–1939, English novelist, poet, critic, and editor.
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Gerald R(udolph, Jr.) Leslie Lynch King, Jr., 1913–2006, U.S. political leader: congressman 1948–73; vice president 1973–74; 38th president of the U.S. 1974–77.
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Guy Stanton, 1873–1963, U.S. historian, educator, and editor.
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Henry, 1863–1947, U.S. automobile manufacturer.
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John, 1586?–c1640, English playwright.
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John Sean O'Feeney, 1895–1973, U.S. film director.
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a male given name.
Ford
1
British
/ fɔːd /
noun
-
Ford Maddox (ˈmædəks) original name Ford Madox Hueffer . 1873–1939, English novelist, editor, and critic; works include The Good Soldier (1915) and the war tetralogy Parade's End (1924–28).
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Gerald R ( udolph ). 1913–2006, US politician; 38th president of the US (1974–77)
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Harrison . born 1942, US film actor. His films include Star Wars (1977) and its sequels, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and its sequels, Bladerunner (1982), Clear and Present Danger (1994), and What Lies Beneath (2000)
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Henry . 1863–1947, US car manufacturer, who pioneered mass production
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John . 1586–?1639, English dramatist; author of revenge tragedies such as 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (1633)
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John , real name Sean O'Feeney . 1895–1973, US film director, esp of Westerns such as Stagecoach (1939) and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)
ford
2
British
/ fɔːd /
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
fordsimple
-
fordssimple
-
have fordedperfect
-
has fordedperfect
-
am fordingprogressive
-
are fordingprogressive
-
is fordingprogressive
-
have been fordingperfect progressive
-
has been fordingperfect progressive
Past
-
fordedsimple
-
had fordedperfect
-
was fordingprogressive
-
were fordingprogressive
-
had been fordingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of ford
before 900; Middle English (noun), Old English; cognate with Old Frisian forda, German Furt; akin to Old Norse fjǫrthr, fare, port 1
Explanation
When you’re out hiking in the wilderness, you may have to ford a river if there’s no bridge. Roll up your pant legs because you'll have to wade through the water at a shallow point. The verb ford describes crossing a body of water on foot at a shallow point or driving across it in a vehicle. The idea is that you’re not using a bridge or a boat to cross the water. Ford also has a noun form, meaning a shallow point in a river or stream. So if you ever have to ford a river, make sure you cross at the ford — the shallow point — or you could get very wet.
Vocabulary lists containing ford
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
It is thought the former wing's vehicle was swept away while he tried to drive across a ford during Storm Darragh.
From BBC ● Sep. 22, 2025
A search of the River Aln revealed his car, which was unoccupied, had been swept downstream from the ford at Abberwick "as a result of storm water", Mr Hetherington said.
From BBC ● Jan. 8, 2025
He says it now needs doing again in order to prevent the ford flooding as often as it does.
From BBC ● Feb. 3, 2024
According to a council report, an average of 1,900 vehicles used to go down Rufford Lane every day before the ford closed.
From BBC ● Feb. 3, 2024
“Nhe swam the Eske river where ford there was none; Buttair he alighted at Netherby Gate, The bridehad cunsended, the gallantcame late. ”
From "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy
Plus, Ford and GM lock horns in a new battle, and a girls’ trip to Ibiza takes a dramatic turn.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 15, 2026
The automaker’s new Ford Energy subsidiary expects to spend $2 billion redirecting batteries to electricity storage at data centers and other large industrial users of power.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 15, 2026
In May, the USS Gerald R. Ford came home after 11 months, becoming the longest-deployed aircraft carrier since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
The Ford took part in US operations in the Caribbean, where Washington's forces have carried out strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats and seized Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, before being dispatched to the Middle East.
From Barron's ● Aug. 13, 2026
Ford turns to the room and says, “All right, everyone, clean up your area. It’s quiet reading time now. Come pick out your books, please.”
From "Split the Sky" by Marie Arnold
The reroute required building a small bridge and establishing new creek fords.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 21, 2022
“The planned route is at least 135 miles long, and depending on the?deviations, avoiding avalanche risks, finding safe river fords, and?wandering in the trees, it could be as much as 150 miles,” Williams said.
From Washington Times ● Feb. 22, 2016
You have to ford numerous rivers, and the Shoshones, Pawnees and Sioux, were extremely adept at helping the pioneers make these fords.
From National Geographic ● Jul. 12, 2015
Painted in garish colours, Wayne fords a river in a stagecoach pulled by a team of wild-eyed horses.
From BBC ● Oct. 10, 2013
Forty leagues and more it was, as a bird flies, from Edoras to the fords of the Isen, where they hoped to find the king’s men that held back the hosts of Saruman.
From "The Two Towers" by J. R. R. Tolkien
He has picked his way across roads and railways, forded local streams and swum across the River Danube.
From BBC ● Sep. 22, 2025
Akil continues down the road that Blume's 1975 novel forded, accurately capturing adolescence's hidden longing and confusion.
From Salon ● May 21, 2025
Klemperer and his colleagues, including collaborators in China, traversed dirt roads and forded streams to collect samples from some 200 natural springs across nearly 1000 kilometers of southern Tibet.
From Science Magazine ● Jan. 9, 2024
Undermanned and outgunned Californios attacked U.S. troops as they forded the San Gabriel River.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 25, 2020
Streams we could have forded easily enough—Marlene seemed quite happy to go back and forth carrying two of us at a time.
From "An Elephant in the Garden" by Michael Morpurgo
Ragnar, the kind of fellow for whom riding a horse and fording a river are second nature, despises Lucas from the moment they meet, and the antipathy proves more than mutual.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 9, 2023
Scotty Jalbert, emergency services manager for San Luis Obispo County, said river crossings can be deceiving and people can run into trouble after successfully fording them several times.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 11, 2023
I did research other options but they all seemed to involve fording rivers and oxen dying.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 22, 2022
Baumbach, working on a larger scale than he has before, pulls off a few fine cinematic coups, one of them involving that station wagon fording a swollen stream.
From New York Times ● Nov. 23, 2022
The men were hovering near the fording place, thinking I’d try a crossing there.
From "Crispin: The Cross of Lead" by Avi
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
