Thames

Thames

 (tĕmz)

1. A river of southern England flowing about 340 km (210 mi) eastward to a wide estuary on the North Sea. Navigable for large ships as far as London, it is the principal commercial waterway of the country. In its upper course above Oxford it is often called Isis.

2. A river, about 260 km (160 mi) long, of southeast Ontario, Canada, flowing southwest to Lake St. Clair. In the War of 1812 Gen. William Henry Harrison defeated British and Native American forces in the Battle of the Thames (October 5, 1813).

Word History: The Roman name for the River Thames was Tamēsa or Tamēsis, and this name doubtless has its origins in the Celtic languages originally spoken in Great Britain, languages that were later widely replaced by Old English after the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons. The first mention of the Thames in the surviving literature of Old English occurs in a work from around 893, an abridged translation of the work of the late Roman historian Paulus Orosius. This translation is traditionally attributed to Alfred the Great, who translated many classics from Latin himself, but it was probably made by others as part of the ambitious program of translations that the king organized in order to further the spread of knowledge in his realm. In Alfred's time, the Old English name of the river was spelled Temese or Temes. The spellings of the name of the river with an h, such as Thamyse and Thames, are much later and first begin to appear in the early 1500s. Such spellings are examples of the kind of "learned" respelling that went on in English from the late Renaissance through the Enlightenment, when the prestige of Latin and Greek prompted scholars to "correct" the form of many English words. The a in Thames is etymologically correct, since the Latin forms had that vowel, but the h is a "learned" error, added in the mistaken belief that Thames derived from a Greek word, such as the name of a Greek river called the Thyamis. Such errors were common, and many words that had nothing to do with Greek were respelled to make them look Greek. In many cases, the pronunciations of these words changed accordingly, yielding what linguists call a spelling pronunciation; for example, author, from Latin auctor and not from a Greek word, is now pronounced with a (th), even though we would strictly expect it to be pronounced with a (t) instead. The pronunciation of Thames remained unchanged, however, providing an etymologically explicable example of the notorious discrepancy between English spelling and pronunciation.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Thames

n

1. (Placename) a river in S England, rising in the Cotswolds in several headstreams and flowing generally east through London to the North Sea by a large estuary. Length: 346 km (215 miles). Ancient name: Tamesis

2. (Placename) a river in SE Canada, in Ontario, flowing south to London, then southwest to Lake St Clair. Length: 217 km (135 miles)

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

Thames

(tɛmz; for 3 also θeɪmz, teɪmz)

n.

1. a river in S England, flowing E through London to the North Sea. 209 mi. (336 km) long.

2. a river in SE Canada, in Ontario province, flowing SW to Lake St. Clair. 160 mi. (260 km) long.

3. an estuary in SE Connecticut, flowing S past New London to Long Island Sound. 15 mi. (24 km) long.

Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

Thames - the longest river in England; flows eastward through London to the North Sea River Thames, Thames River England - a division of the United Kingdom

Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.

Translations

Τάμεσης

Tamise

Thames

[temz] N the Thames → el Támesis

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

Thames

[ˈtɛmz] n
the Thames → la Tamise

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

Thames

n → Themse f; he’ll never set the Thames on fire (prov) → er hat das Pulver auch nicht erfunden (prov)

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

Thames

[tɛmz] n the Thames → il Tamigi

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995