beach

Etymology

From Middle English bache, bæcche (“bank, sandbank”), from Old English beċe (“beck, brook, stream”), from Proto-West Germanic *baki, from Proto-Germanic *bakiz (“brook”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeg- (“flowing water”). Cognate with Dutch beek (“brook, stream”), German Bach (“brook, stream”), Swedish bäck (“stream, brook, creek”). More at batch, beck.

noun

1. The shore of a body of water, especially when sandy or pebbly.
   Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path […]. It twisted and turned,[…]and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn. And, back of the lawn, was a big, old-fashioned house, with piazzas stretching in front of it, and all blazing with lights. 'Twas the house I'd seen the roof of from the beach. 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 1, in Mr. Pratt's Patients
2. A horizontal strip of land, usually sandy, adjoining water.
   Up and down, the beach lay empty for miles. 1988, Robert Ferro, Second Son
3. (UK dialectal, Sussex, Kent) The loose pebbles of the seashore, especially worn by waves; shingle.
4. (motor racing, euphemistic) Synonym of gravel trap
5. (sports) A dry, dusty pitch or situation, as though playing on sand.
   I never realised Lincoln was a seaside town. BRIAN LAWS Scunthorpe manager, after losing on a liberally sanded beach of a pitch 2008, Phil Shaw, The Book of Football Quotations, page 415
   The series was brought to an ironic conclusion when England became hoist by their own petard, as they lost the deciding final Test on a 'beach' of a wicket. Neither side batted well. 2012, Tim Quelch, Bent Arms & Dodgy Wickets

verb

1. (intransitive) To run aground on a beach.
   When we finally beached, the land was scarcely less wet than the sea. 1941, Emily Carr, “Salt Water”, in Klee Wyck
2. (transitive) To run (something) aground on a beach.
   Great Aías led twelve ships from Sálamis and beached them where Athenians formed for battle. 1974, Homer, translated by Robert Fitzgerald, Iliad, Doubleday, Book Two, lines 530-31, p. 53
3. (of a vehicle) To run into an obstacle or rough or soft ground, so that the floor of the vehicle rests on the ground and the wheels cannot gain traction.