beach

Pluralbeaches

Formsbeaches, beaching, beached

1. 1
   sandy shorenouncountable

   The shore of a sea, lake, or river, especially where it is sandy or pebbly.

   Fishermen dragged their nets up onto the beach at dusk.

   Smooth stones covered the beach where the river met the sea.

   UsageYou go to the beach and lie on the beach; at the beach means being there in general.

   Similarshore, seashore, sand, strand

   Note

   The word goes back through Middle English bache, a bank or sandbank, to Old English beċe, a brook, and only later settled on the shore itself. It covers the shore of a sea, lake or river alike.

2. 2
   bring ashoreverbtransitive

   Of a boat, whale, or other large thing: to run or be brought aground onto the shore.

   The crew beached the lifeboat on the sand to make repairs.

   Sailors often beach their small craft to wait out rough weather.

   UsageOften as beached: a beached whale, beached boats.

   Similarground, strand, land

   Oppositelaunch, refloat

   Note

   Often someone does the grounding, and the object need not be a boat. In Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851), mariners of the Cinque Ports kill a whale and beach it, hauling it ashore. In Robert Fitzgerald's 1974 Iliad, Aías beaches twelve ships, the ancient way of drawing a fleet up onto the sand. Beaching is often deliberate, but a stranded whale is beached too, so the verb can also describe accidental grounding.

3. 3
   car stuckverbtransitive or intransitive

   To become stuck when a vehicle's underside rests on an obstacle or soft ground, leaving the wheels unable to gain traction.

   The jeep beached on a hidden rock, its wheels spinning uselessly in the air.

   Inexperienced drivers often beach their vehicles on steep, rutted tracks.

   Similarground

   Note

   A sailor's word carried onto land: the vehicle is grounded like a hull on sand. Its floor rests on a rock, a ridge or soft ground while the wheels spin without grip. The stuck part is the underside, not the wheels themselves. Like the boat senses, it works both ways: the jeep beached, or a driver beached the jeep.

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