Meanings
- A town and civil parish with a town council in East Hertfordshire district, Hertfordshire, England (OS grid ref TL4821).
Origin
Uncertain. Possibly the Saxon settlement derived its name from 'Steorta's ford' or 'tail ford', in the sense of a 'tail', or tongue, of land. The town became known as Bishop's Stortford due to the acquisition in 1060 by the Bishop of London. The River Stort is named after the town: 16th-century cartographers assumed that the town must have been named after the ford over the river.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Bishop's Stortford. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Bishop's%20Stortford
“Bishop's Stortford.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Bishop's%20Stortford. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Bishop's Stortford,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Bishop's%20Stortford.
Source: Bishop's Stortford on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.