berth

Meanings

1. Chiefly in wide berth: a sufficient space in the water for a ship or other vessel to lie at anchor or manoeuvre without getting in the way of other vessels, or colliding into rocks or the shore.
2. A place for a vessel to lie at anchor or to moor.
3. A room in a vessel in which the officers or company mess (“eat together”) and reside; also, a room or other place in a vessel for storage.
4. A place on a vessel to sleep, especially a bed on the side of a cabin.
5. A job or position on a vessel.
6. An assigned place for a person in (chiefly historical) a horse-drawn coach or other means of transportation, or (military) in a barracks.
7. A bunk or other bed for sleeping on in a caravan, a train, etc.
8. A place for a vehicle on land to park.
9. An appointment, job, or position, especially one regarded as comfortable or good.
10. Chiefly in wide berth: a sufficient space for manoeuvring or safety.
11. A proper place for a thing.
12. A position or seed in a tournament bracket.

1. To bring (a ship or other vessel) into a berth (noun etymology 1, noun sense 1.1); also, to provide a berth for (a vessel).
2. To use a device to bring (a spacecraft) into its berth or dock.
3. To assign (someone) a berth (noun etymology 1, noun sense 1.3 or etymology 1, noun sense 2.2) or place to sleep on a vessel, a train, etc.
4. To provide (someone) with a berth (noun etymology 1, noun sense 3.1) or appointment, job, or position.
5. Of a vessel: to move into a berth.
6. Of a person: to occupy a berth.

1. Chiefly in shipbuilding: to construct (a ship or part of it) using wooden boards or planks; to board, to plank.

Etymology

The noun is derived from Late Middle English birth (“(nautical) bearing away or off, clearance, berth”). Further etymology uncertain, but probably from beren (“to carry (away), bear”) + -th (suffix denoting a condition, quality, state of being, etc., forming nouns); if so, the English word is analysable as bear + -th (suffix forming nouns from verbs), and is a piecewise doublet of birth. The verb is derived from the noun.

Translations