embay

American  

[em-bey] / ɛmˈbeɪ /

verb (used with object)

1. to enclose in or as if in a bay; surround or envelop.

2. to form into a bay.

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embay British  

/ ɪmˈbeɪ /

verb

1. to form into a bay

2. to enclose in or as if in a bay

3. (esp of the wind) to force (a ship, esp a sailing ship) into a bay

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Other Word Forms

• unembayed adjective

Etymology

Origin of embay

First recorded in 1575–85; em- ¹ + bay ¹

Example Sentences

Embay, em-bā′, v.t. to enclose in a bay: to land-lock.—n.

From Project Gutenberg

As earth, sad earth, thrusts many a gloomy cape Into the sea's bright colour and living glee, So do we strive to embay that mystery Which earthly hands must ever let escape; The Word we seek for is the golden shape That shall enshrine the Soul we cannot see, A temporal chalice of Eternity Purple with beating blood of the hallowed grape.

From Project Gutenberg

How perfect is the verdure—how rich the blossoming shrubberies that screen with verdurous walls from the possibility of intrusion, whilst by their own wandering line of distribution they shape and umbrageously embay, what one might call lawny saloons and vestibules—sylvan galleries and closets.

From Project Gutenberg

The softened season all the landscape charms; Those hills, my native village that embay, 20In waves of dreamier purple roll away, And floating in mirage seem all the glimmering farms.

From Project Gutenberg

And whatso else of virtue good or ill,   Grew in this garden, fetched from far away,   Of every one he takes and tastes at will,   And on their pleasures greedily doth prey;   Then, when he hath both played and fed his fill,   In the warm sun he doth himself embay,   And there him rests in riotous suffisance   Of all his gladfulness and kingly joyance.

From Project Gutenberg