FORD

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does Ford mean? 

• FORD (noun)
  The noun FORD has 8 senses:

1. United States film maker (1896-1973)

2. grandson of Henry Ford (1917-1987)

3. son of Henry Ford (1893-1943)

4. English writer and editor (1873-1939)

5. 38th President of the United States; appointed vice president and succeeded Nixon when Nixon resigned (1913-2006)

6. United States manufacturer of automobiles who pioneered mass production (1863-1947)

7. a shallow area in a stream that can be forded

8. the act of crossing a stream or river by wading or in a car or on a horse

  Familiarity information: FORD used as a noun is common.

• FORD (verb)
  The verb FORD has 1 sense:

1. cross a river where it's shallow

  Familiarity information: FORD used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FORD (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

United States film maker (1896-1973)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

Ford; John Ford

Instance hypernyms:

film maker; film producer; filmmaker; movie maker (a producer of motion pictures)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Grandson of Henry Ford (1917-1987)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

Ford; Henry Ford II

Instance hypernyms:

industrialist (someone who manages or has significant financial interest in an industrial enterprise)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Son of Henry Ford (1893-1943)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

Edsel Bryant Ford; Ford

Instance hypernyms:

industrialist (someone who manages or has significant financial interest in an industrial enterprise)

Sense 4

Meaning:

English writer and editor (1873-1939)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

Ford; Ford Hermann Hueffer; Ford Madox Ford

Instance hypernyms:

author; writer (writes (books or stories or articles or the like) professionally (for pay))

Sense 5

Meaning:

38th President of the United States; appointed vice president and succeeded Nixon when Nixon resigned (1913-2006)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

Ford; Gerald Ford; Gerald R. Ford; Gerald Rudolph Ford; President Ford

Instance hypernyms:

Chief Executive; President; President of the United States; United States President (the person who holds the office of head of state of the United States government)

Sense 6

Meaning:

United States manufacturer of automobiles who pioneered mass production (1863-1947)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

Ford; Henry Ford

Instance hypernyms:

industrialist (someone who manages or has significant financial interest in an industrial enterprise)

Sense 7

Meaning:

A shallow area in a stream that can be forded

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Synonyms:

crossing; ford

Hypernyms ("ford" is a kind of...):

body of water; water (the part of the earth's surface covered with water (such as a river or lake or ocean))

Holonyms ("ford" is a part of...):

stream; watercourse (a natural body of running water flowing on or under the earth)

Derivation:

ford (cross a river where it's shallow)

Sense 8

Meaning:

The act of crossing a stream or river by wading or in a car or on a horse

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

ford; fording

Hypernyms ("ford" is a kind of...):

crossing (traveling across)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "ford"):

shallow fording (fording at a shallow place)

deep fording (fording at a deep place in the stream)

Derivation:

ford (cross a river where it's shallow)

• FORD (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they ford    ... he / she / it fords   
Past simple: forded   
Past participle: forded   
-ing form: fording   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Cross a river where it's shallow

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Hypernyms (to "ford" is one way to...):

cover; cross; cut across; cut through; get across; get over; pass over; track; traverse (travel across or pass over)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

ford (the act of crossing a stream or river by wading or in a car or on a horse)

ford (a shallow area in a stream that can be forded)

fording (the act of crossing a stream or river by wading or in a car or on a horse)

 Context examples 

Ford's feet reached the edge of the bulwarks, and his hand clutching a rope he swung himself on board.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"Did I tell you how I first read your story?" Mr. Ford said.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Rivers and streams that entered the main river he forded or swam.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

He comes to Highbury himself, he says, six days out of the seven, and has always business at Ford's.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

If I might venture to offer you a word of advice, said the affable official, it would be to make for the Hampshire line, for Sir James Ford, on the Surrey border, has as great an objection to such assemblies as I have, whilst Mr. Merridew, of Long Hall, who is the Hampshire magistrate, has fewer scruples upon the point.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The secretary lay back in the cushions of the luxurious limousine, with his thoughts so full of the impending European tragedy that he hardly observed that as his car swung round the village street it nearly passed over a little Ford coming in the opposite direction.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I was suddenly, upon turning the corner of a steepish downy field, in the midst of a retired little village between gently rising hills; a small stream before me to be forded, a church standing on a sort of knoll to my right—which church was strikingly large and handsome for the place, and not a gentleman or half a gentleman's house to be seen excepting one—to be presumed the Parsonage—within a stone's throw of the said knoll and church.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

A team from the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit and from the University of California, San Francisco, set out to examine the relationship between an infant’s gut microbiota and subsequent development of allergy and asthma.

(Infant gut microbes linked to allergy, asthma risk, NIH)

“By St. George!” cried Ford, “we are cut off from Sir Nigel.”

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Cards evidently were not necessary in that office, for the boy carried word to an inner room that there was a man who wanted to see Mr. Ford.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)