Other forms: fords, fording, forded
To ford is to cross a stream by wading. Ford the river, fordable in summer, ford it on foot.
As a noun it is the shallow place where crossing is possible, and a great many English place names end in ford for exactly that reason. Six inches of moving water will take a person off their feet.
1verbfordTo cross a stream by wading.
“The river was low, so we could ford it on foot instead of walking to the bridge.”
ford is a crossing.
Old English ford names a crossing place, from a root meaning to go through.
Middle English
fōrd
Old English
ford
English, today
ford
From Old English ford. From Middle English fōrd, from Old English ford, from Proto-West Germanic furdu, from Proto-Germanic furduz, from Proto-Indo-European pértus (“crossing”). a doublet of firth and fjord and fjard, all via -; and a doublet of port, distantly via -. Cognate with Low German Föörd, Dutch voord, German Furt, Norwegian and Danish fjord. See also forth and Persian پل (“bridge”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA