What does "quay" mean?

A stone or concrete structure on navigable water used for loading and unloading vessels; a wharf.

What is a synonym for "quay"?

Common synonyms include: anchorage, anchorage ground, basin, berth, breakwater, bulkhead.

Quay

//keɪ// adj, adv, name, noun, verb

adj, adv, name, noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun

1
A stone or concrete structure on navigable water used for loading and unloading vessels; a wharf.
"moor up in the quay"
2
wharf usually built parallel to the shoreline wordnet

Verb

1
To land or tie up at a quay or similar structure, especially used in the phrase "quay up".

Adjective

1
Alternative spelling of qway (“far”). Multicultural-London-English, alt-of, alternative

Adverb

1
Alternative spelling of qway (“far”). Multicultural-London-English, alt-of, alternative

Proper Noun

1
A surname.

Synonyms

All synonyms

anchorage anchorage ground basin berth breakwater bulkhead

Example

More examples

"The boat was alongside the quay."

Etymology

The current spelling replaced the spelling key in the 1690s to emulate the spelling but (at least originally) not the pronunciation of the equivalent modern French quai. From Middle English kay, key, kaye, keye, from Old French kay, cail, from Gaulish *kagyum, cagiíun (“enclosure”), from Proto-Celtic *kagyom (“pen, enclosure”) (compare Welsh cae (“field”)), from Proto-Indo-European *kagʰyóm (“enclosure”). Doublet of hedge and hey (“choreographic figure”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.