tay

T1A1Y4
/teɪ/

noun

Tea.

Similar
Less commonScrabble 6

Meanings

tay1

nountay (plural tays)

plural tays

  1. dialectalobsoleteTea.

    "There's your tay set for you an' drawin' nicely this minute, Miss Ethel," called old Bridget from the hall.

    1930, Norman Lindsay, Redheap, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, →OCLC, page 207
    2 more examples

    Well, ma'am, you see it was whin I was jist about the age of Mary, there. I was comin' home late one Monday evenin' from the market; for my aunt Kitty, God be marciful to her! would keep me to take a cup of tay.

    1850, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, London: H.G. Bohn, page 381

    "[T]hen the Tulip, - ah! didn't the Tulip die hard, - he fout hard for it, even after he had a hole in his head as big as a tay cup."

    1856 October 18, The People's Advocate and New South Wales Vindicator, Sydney, page 6, column 1

Tay2

proper noun
  1. The longest river in Scotland, United Kingdom, originating on the slopes of Ben Lui and flowing eastwards through the city of Perth before becoming an estuary, the Firth of Tay.

    A Metro-Cammell diesel multiple-unit from Dundee approaches Perth on the single-line bridge over the Tay in July, 1961.

    1962 October, G. Freeman Allen, “The New Look in Scotland's Northern Division—II”, in Modern Railways, page 269, photo caption
  2. A river in Lanark County, Ontario, Canada, a left tributary of the Rideau.

Tay3

proper nounTay (countable and uncountable, plural Tays)

plural Tays

  1. countableuncountableA surname.

Tay4

proper nounTay (countable and uncountable, plural Tays)

plural Tays

  1. countableuncountableA diminutive of the unisex given name Taylor.

Synonyms & antonyms

nouna branch of the Tai languages, spoken in central and northeast Vietnam, near China border, Cao Bang, Lang Son, Bac Giang, Bac Kan, Thai Nguyen, Ha Giang, Tuyen Quang, Yen Bai, and Hai Duong provinces, Bac Thai, Quang Ninh, Ha Bac, south in Lam Dong Province,Tung Nghia and Song Mao and possibly in Laos

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Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.

Origin

tay · noun

Spelling form indicating original pronunciation of tea. The digraph ea represented /ɛː/ in Early Modern English; it later merged chiefly with ee, but regionally or sporadically with ay (in standard English break, great, steak). Compare the song Polly put the kettle on, where tea rhymes with away.

Full word history & related roots →

Tay · proper noun

  1. Proto-BrythonicTausa“silent, strong, or flowing”
  2. EnglishTay

Possibly from Proto-Brythonic Tausa (“silent, strong, or flowing”).

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Tay · proper noun

Borrowed from Hokkien 鄭/郑 (Tēⁿ), Teochew 鄭/郑 (dên7), Hokkien 戴 (Tè), or a variant of the English surname Tee.

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Tay · proper noun

Clipping of Taylor.

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Rhymes & wordplay

Rhymes with tay

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Anagrams

Cite this entry
APA

tay. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tay

MLA

“tay.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tay. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “tay,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tay.

Source: tay on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.