berth
Pluralberths
Pluralberths
Formsberths, berthing, berthed
- 1A spot where a vessel can stay, either at anchor or made fast to a mooring.
The whaler returned to her berth with a hold full of sperm oil.
The harbor master assigned the tanker a berth at the far end of the quay.
Similarmooring, anchorage, dock
Note
The harbor sense grew from an older idea of clearance: Late Middle English birth, probably from bear, meant bearing away or off, the room still kept in the "wide berth" phrase. Older writers spelled it birth, as Henry Fielding does in The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon and Jane Austen in Mansfield Park, so in old texts it can pass for another word. A ship returns to her berth or lies in one.
- 2A place to sleep on a vessel, especially a bed fixed along the side of a cabin.
On the overnight ferry, I climbed into the top berth and slept until dawn.
The watch were all out of their berths, dragging one poor fellow from his to wake him.
Note
The verbs give its shape away. Melville's Jonah throws himself into his berth, and Dana's watch are all out of theirs: the bed is built into the cabin's side, a compartment one climbs into rather than a piece of furniture. Byron's grumbling passengers are "clapt in" theirs, in a cabin hardly three feet square. The word also counts sleeping places in compounds, so Alice Kipling's three-berth cabin sleeps three.
- 3A bunk or other bed for sleeping in a train, caravan, or similar vehicle.
The old Pullman sections, each with an upper and lower berth, offered no privacy but a curtain.
She drew the curtain across her berth and tried to sleep as the train rattled north.
Note
On land, the shipboard bed became the sleeping-car berth, stacked as upper and lower and numbered. Mary Roberts Rinehart's The Man in Lower Ten takes its title from one. The old Pullman section paired an upper and a lower berth with only a curtain along the aisle for privacy, a design The Railway Magazine judged in 1944 to have had its day.
- 4Chiefly in wide berth, sufficient space for maneuvering or safety; a safe distance.
The road was too narrow to give the phantom what seamen call a wide berth.
Investors have given the company a wide berth since the scandal.
Note
The idiom give something a wide berth means to keep well clear of it, and it still carries the picture of a ship standing off from rocks or other vessels. Scott in 1830 still treats it as "what seamen call a wide birth." Give is the usual verb, though Thackeray writes keep a wide berth of me, and William Morris strengthens it to a full wide berth.
- 5In sports, a position or seed in a tournament bracket.
The conference champion receives an automatic berth in the national tournament.
Two wild-card berths went to teams from the same division.
Note
Sportswriting treats a tournament place as something to be won: teams earn, clinch or secure a berth. The kind of place is often named, as in an automatic berth for a conference champion or a wild-card berth for the next-best. It can mean simply a place in the field or, more narrowly, a seeded position within the bracket.
- 6An appointment or post, particularly one that people think of as easy or desirable.
After years of freelancing, he landed a comfortable berth at a law firm.
The post was a snug berth: short hours, steady pay, and nobody looking over her shoulder.
Similarjob, post, position, billet, situation
Note
Sailors' talk brought ashore. In 1720 Defoe still marks getting "a Birth" as what the sailors call it, an echo of a post aboard ship. By Thackeray's day the post could be anywhere, as in "a snug berth in the City." Its usual adjectives are snug, good and warm, so calling a job a berth hints that it is comfortable rather than demanding.
- 7In road transport, a place for a vehicle to park or stand.
Buses wait in their berths until the departure board calls them forward.
The driver pulled the truck into berth 4 to wait for its turn on the scale.
Note
Road transport borrows the word from the harbor sense: a vehicle, like a ship, is brought into its berth and waits there until it is time to move again. The image carries over the idea of a place set aside for a vehicle, a stand at a coach station or a space in a lorry park, and it keeps the word's older flavor of a vessel brought safely to rest.
- 8Of a vessel: to move into a berth, often reflexive.
The ship ran up with the tide and berthed herself so well that no pilot could have done better.
Tankers berth themselves at the jetty with tugs standing by.
Note
Here the ship does the moving and takes no object: a vessel berths at a jetty, or, in the reflexive turn, berths herself. The reflexive lends the ship a will of its own, as though she had picked her place along the quay. When a pilot or crew is doing the work, the transitive verb is the one that names them: they berth the ship.
- 9In nautical use, to bring a vessel into a berth; also, to provide a berth for a vessel.
The new pier will let the port berth two cruise ships at once.
Tugs berthed the carrier in under an hour.
Note
The transitive verb of harbors: someone or something berths a vessel. The subject may be a crew, tugs or the port itself. A refinery "designed to berth the world's largest tankers" is one with water and quays enough to take them. Its opposite is unberth. When the ship is the subject and there is no object, the verb becomes the ship moving in.
- 10In sports, a position on the field of play.
Walcott reverted to his familiar berth on the right wing and created the fifth goal.
Three players are competing for one berth in midfield.
Similarposition, place, spot, role
Note
Football reporting uses it for a player's station in the team's shape. Paul Doyle has Theo Walcott revert "to his more familiar berth on the right wing." It pairs naturally with a place on the pitch, such as on the wing or in midfield, and suggests a slot one player holds or competes for. That sets it apart from a place in a tournament, which belongs to a team.
- 11An assigned place for a person, historically in a horse-drawn coach or other conveyance, or in a barracks.
A passenger who booked early got the best berth in the coach, facing forward.
Recruits were shown to their berths and told to be silent after lights out.
Note
Coach travel borrowed the shipboard word for a place that had to be claimed. In Scott's The Antiquary, the first comer hastens to secure the best birth in the coach and to settle his baggage before his rival arrives. In military use it is a soldier's assigned place in barracks. In both settings a berth is allotted space, more than just a seat or a bed.
- 12A room in a vessel where the officers or company mess and live; also, a room or other place in a vessel used for storage.
It was the first day Jack entered the midshipmen's berth and met his messmates.
Smollett's hero is shown a berth several feet under water, dark as a dungeon.
Similarmess
Note
Here the word moves from the water into the hull. It names a shared living space after the group that uses it, as in the midshipman's berth, whose occupants are messmates. It could be grim: Smollett's press-ganged narrator is shown "their birth," as dark as a dungeon and several feet under water. The same word also covered storage space below decks.
- 13Employment aboard a ship, or the particular post a person fills as part of its crew.
After years as a cook, he finally landed a berth as first mate on a cargo ship.
She signed on for a berth as second mate.
Similarpost, position, job, billet
Note
Aboard ship a post is something you fill, like a bunk. Dana's reformed sailor is "capable of filling any berth in a ship," set against the "high station" held ashore by a meaner man. You fill, get or sign on for a berth, sometimes with the rank named, as in a berth as second mate. Ashore the same word became a comfortable post anywhere.
- 14To assign someone a berth or sleeping place on a vessel, train, or the like, chiefly in the passive.
Passengers were berthed two to a cabin on the crossing.
The purser will berth the late arrivals wherever space remains.
Similaraccommodate, house, lodge, quarter
Note
Mostly met in the passive, with the traveler as the subject: passengers are berthed two to a cabin. The active form puts an official in charge, so a purser berths the late arrivals wherever space remains. It serves for trains as well as ships. Unlike the job-finding verb, what is handed out here is a place to sleep.
- 15To have one's bunk or living quarters in a particular berth, as a sailor or passenger does aboard ship.
As a young deckhand, he berthed with six other men in a cramped forward cabin.
Officers berth aft and the hands forward, by old custom.
Note
Paired with a place, it says where a person lives and sleeps aboard. Stevenson's cabin-boy Ransome came in from the round-house, "where he berthed and served," and the pairing ties him to one part of the ship for both work and rest. It usually takes a place phrase, such as in the round-house, aft or forward, rather than standing alone.
- 16
- 17Chiefly in nautical use, the proper place for a thing.
The shipwrights cut every timber and placed it in its proper berth, Defoe records.
A tidy bosun knows the berth of every block and shackle aboard.
Similarplace
Note
Deck and shipyard slang for where a thing belongs. Every timber, block or shackle has its berth, just as a sleeper has a bunk, and Defoe's shipwrights set each piece of timber in its proper berth. Because it belongs to nautical talk, plain place is the safer choice outside sea writing or deliberately salty prose.
- 18In astronautics, to bring a spacecraft into its berth or dock using a device such as a robotic arm.
Astronauts berth cargo craft by capturing them with the arm and guiding them to the port.
The capsule was berthed to the nadir port six hours after launch.
Note
Spaceflight carries the harbor verb into orbit, with a distinction worth keeping. A berthed craft is handled into its port by a device, typically a robotic arm, instead of steering itself in. That handling is what berth adds to dock, and it takes the same opposite, unberth, as the harbor verb.
- 19In shipbuilding, to construct a ship or part of it with boards or planks.
When you have berthed her up to the planks, John Smith writes, lay the beams of the first orlop.
Shipwrights berth the frames from the keel upward.
Note
A different word from the harbor berth, possibly borrowed from Icelandic byrði, meaning a ship's side or a board. It meant to plank a hull: John Smith in 1627 tells shipwrights what to do once they "have berthed or brought her up to the planks." It now survives only in historical writing about wooden shipbuilding. In modern prose, plank or board is the word to use.
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Origins
The noun comes from Late Middle English birth, a nautical term for bearing off, clearance, or berth. Its further origin is uncertain, but it probably comes from beren ('to carry, bear') plus the noun-forming suffix -th, making it a doublet of 'birth'. The verb comes from the noun.
It was possibly borrowed from Icelandic byrði ('side of a ship, board').