Learn English – Meaning of word “ford” in combination with “hurdle”

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First and foremost I'm not from an English speaking country hence the question.

When reading Wikipedia's article about Dublin it says that the meaning of original Irish name for Dublin is town of the hurdled ford. I know what town is, I also know what hurdle is, but to the best of my ability I really don't know what a ford is. Could this be a spelling mistake and it should say fort instead?

Please help me clear the original meaning out?

Edit

…after getting the ford definition

After checking dictionary meaning of word ford I get the meaning of it that it's a shallow river passage. But then again hurdle and ford somewhat contradict each other. If a shallow section of a river is hurdled it can't be a ford any more, can it?

Best Answer

Hurdled is a verb that could mean "to jump over a hurdle". The expression therefore could be taken to mean a ford which has been crossed by jumping over it. This could be taken literally or more probably figuratively. The expression therefore might be taken as "a place where a river was crossed easily".

However, as Mr. Lister pointed out, hurdled could also mean that hurdles were added to the ford. See this page: (emphasis added)

The Gaelic name for Dublin is ‘Baile Atha Cliath’ which translates literally as ‘town of the hurdle ford’, a description of the bank of wooden hurdles built up across the river Liffey by the Vikings. The word ‘Dublin’ is actually a composition of two Gaelic words: ‘dubh’ meaning ‘black’ and ‘linn’ means ‘pool’ (or ‘mire’). Thus the literal translation of the words from which Dublin gets its name is Black pool! Crossing the ‘hurdle ford’ was not without its dangers. In 770 AD a band of Bon Valley raiders were drowned crossing the Liffey at the hurdle ford.

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