Ashley

plural Ashleys · alternative Ashlee · alternative Ashleigh · alternative Ashlie · alternative Ashly

1. A number of villages and hamlets in England:
   1. countableuncountableA village and civil parish in East Cambridgeshire district, Cambridgeshire (OS grid ref TL6961).
   2. countableuncountableA village and civil parish in Cheshire East district, Cheshire (OS grid ref SJ7784).
   3. countableuncountableA settlement in St Leonards and St Ives parish, east Dorset (OS grid ref SU1304).
   4. countableuncountableA village and civil parish (without a council) in Cotswold district, Gloucestershire (OS grid ref ST9394).
   5. countableuncountableA hamlet in Bentworth parish, East Hampshire district, Hampshire (OS grid ref SU6440).
   6. countableuncountableA suburb in New Milton parish, New Forest district, Hampshire (OS grid ref SZ2595).
   7. countableuncountableA village and civil parish (without a council) in Test Valley district, Hampshire. (OS grid ref SU3831).
   8. countableuncountableA hamlet in Sutton parish, Dover district, Kent (OS grid ref TR3048).
   9. countableuncountableA village and civil parish in North Northamptonshire district, Northamptonshire, previously in Kettering district (OS grid ref SP7990).
   10. countableuncountableA village in Loggerheads parish, Newcastle-under-Lyme district, Staffordshire (OS grid ref SJ7636).
   11. countableuncountableA village in Box parish, Wiltshire (OS grid ref ST8168).
2. countableuncountableA surname from Old English derived from the places in England.
3. countableuncountableA male given name transferred from the surname.

   'There now, Scarlett! You admit it is true. What would you be doing with a husband like Ashley? 'Tis moonstruck they all are, all the Wilkes.'

   1936 June 30, Margaret Mitchell, chapter III, in Gone with the Wind, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC

   1 more example

   In 2017, Katherine Maher, then the CEO of the WMF, re-imagined the nonprofit’s mission as “top-down social justice activism and advocacy,” as journalist Ashley Rindsberg described it.

   2025 September 30, Larry Sanger, “4. Revive the original neutrality policy.”, in larrysanger.org

4. countableuncountableA female given name transferred from the surname.

   Renee Walters and Ashley Scott started the campaign to buy Freedom after Walters saw a viral post about buying a town “for the price of a New York apartment.”

   2020 September 30, Ashley Schwartz-Lavares and Steve Osunsami, “Black Americans are leaving their homes to start their own all-Black communities”, in ABC News

   2 more examples

   But when Krystal McConnell and Ashley Flynn were named deep in the heart of the '80s the thing was cuteness, feminine delicacy raised to an aesthetic paradigm. --- And everyone named according to a particular version of the pedigree fantasy. Ashley : transplanted Southern privilege, a destiny lying in sorority mixers and a marriage of health club memberships, state-of-the-art appliances and night courses in nouvelle cuisine.

   1999, Andrew Pyper, chapter 10, in Lost Girls

   I discovered that her full name was Margaret Lowell. I wasn't an expert on Earth names, but I still knew this was wildly inappropriate. She should have been called Lana Bellcurve or Ashley Brainsex or something.

   2013, Matt Haig, The Humans, Canongate, →ISBN, page 832

   Synonyms: Ash

5. A number of places in the United States:
   1. countableuncountableA minor city in Washington County, Illinois; named for railroad official Col. L. W. Ashley.
   2. countableuncountableA town in Smithfield Township, DeKalb County and Steuben Township, Steuben County, Indiana.
   3. countableuncountableA village in Elba Township, Gratiot County, Michigan.
   4. countableuncountableA census-designated place in Pike County, Missouri; named for the state's first lieutenant governor, William Henry Ashley.
   5. countableuncountableA city, the county seat of McIntosh County, North Dakota; named for railroad official Ashley E. Morrow.
   6. countableuncountableA village in Oxford Township, Delaware County, Ohio; named for Col. L. W. Ashley.
   7. countableuncountableA borough in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.
   8. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in Doddridge County, West Virginia; named for the local Ash family.
   9. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in the towns of Guenther and Knowlton, Marathon County, Wisconsin.
6. countableuncountableA locality in Moree Plains Shire, New South Wales, Australia; named for one of the settlements in England.
7. countableuncountableA small settlement and river north of Rangiora, Canterbury, New Zealand.