Ashley
Language: English
Part of speech: name
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈæʃli/
Forms: form: Ashleys
form: Ashlee
form: Ashleigh
form: Ashlie
form: Ashly
Etymology: From Old English *Æsċlēah, composed of æsċ (“ash tree”) + lēah (“wood, clearing”). Equivalent to Ash + -ley.
Senses: glosses: A number of villages and hamlets in England:
A village and civil parish in East Cambridgeshire district, Cambridgeshire (OS grid ref TL6961).
glosses: A number of villages and hamlets in England:
A village and civil parish in Cheshire East district, Cheshire (OS grid ref SJ7784).
glosses: A number of villages and hamlets in England:
A settlement in St Leonards and St Ives parish, east Dorset (OS grid ref SU1304).
glosses: A number of villages and hamlets in England:
A village and civil parish (without a council) in Cotswold district, Gloucestershire (OS grid ref ST9394).
glosses: A number of villages and hamlets in England:
A hamlet in Bentworth parish, East Hampshire district, Hampshire (OS grid ref SU6440).
glosses: A number of villages and hamlets in England:
A suburb in New Milton parish, New Forest district, Hampshire (OS grid ref SZ2595).
glosses: A number of villages and hamlets in England:
A village and civil parish (without a council) in Test Valley district, Hampshire. (OS grid ref SU3831).
glosses: A number of villages and hamlets in England:
A hamlet in Sutton parish, Dover district, Kent (OS grid ref TR3048).
glosses: A number of villages and hamlets in England:
A village and civil parish in North Northamptonshire district, Northamptonshire, previously in Kettering district (OS grid ref SP7990).
glosses: A number of villages and hamlets in England:
A village in Loggerheads parish, Newcastle-under-Lyme district, Staffordshire (OS grid ref SJ7636).
glosses: A number of villages and hamlets in England:
A village in Box parish, Wiltshire (OS grid ref ST8168).
glosses: A surname from Old English derived from the places in England.
examples: text: 'There now, Scarlett! You admit it is true. What would you be doing with a husband like Ashley? 'Tis moonstruck they all are, all the Wilkes.'
ref: 1936 June 30, Margaret Mitchell, chapter III, in Gone with the Wind, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, 1944, →OCLC:
text: In 2017, Katherine Maher, then the CEO of the WMF, re-imagined the nonprofit’s mission as “top-down social justice activism and advocacy,” as journalist Ashley Rindsberg described it.
ref: 2025 September 30, Larry Sanger, “4. Revive the original neutrality policy.”, in larrysanger.org:
glosses: A male given name transferred from the surname.
examples: text: But when Krystal McConnell and Ashley Flynn were named deep in the heart of the '80s the thing was cuteness, feminine delicacy raised to an aesthetic paradigm. --- And everyone named according to a particular version of the pedigree fantasy. Ashley : transplanted Southern privilege, a destiny lying in sorority mixers and a marriage of health club memberships, state-of-the-art appliances and night courses in nouvelle cuisine.
ref: 1999, Andrew Pyper, chapter 10, in Lost Girls:
text: I discovered that her full name was Margaret Lowell. I wasn't an expert on Earth names, but I still knew this was wildly inappropriate. She should have been called Lana Bellcurve or Ashley Brainsex or something.
ref: 2013, Matt Haig, The Humans, Canongate, →ISBN, page 832:
text: Renee Walters and Ashley Scott started the campaign to buy Freedom after Walters saw a viral post about buying a town “for the price of a New York apartment.”
ref: 2020 September 30, Ashley Schwartz-Lavares and Steve Osunsami, “Black Americans are leaving their homes to start their own all-Black communities”, in ABC News:
synonyms: Ash
glosses: A female given name transferred from the surname.
glosses: A number of places in the United States:
A minor city in Washington County, Illinois; named for railroad official Col. L. W. Ashley.
glosses: A number of places in the United States:
A town in Smithfield Township, DeKalb County and Steuben Township, Steuben County, Indiana.
glosses: A number of places in the United States:
A village in Elba Township, Gratiot County, Michigan.
glosses: A number of places in the United States:
A census-designated place in Pike County, Missouri; named for the state's first lieutenant governor, William Henry Ashley.
glosses: A number of places in the United States:
A city, the county seat of McIntosh County, North Dakota; named for railroad official Ashley E. Morrow.
glosses: A number of places in the United States:
A village in Oxford Township, Delaware County, Ohio; named for Col. L. W. Ashley.
glosses: A number of places in the United States:
A borough in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.
glosses: A number of places in the United States:
An unincorporated community in Doddridge County, West Virginia; named for the local Ash family.
glosses: A number of places in the United States:
An unincorporated community in the towns of Guenther and Knowlton, Marathon County, Wisconsin.
glosses: A locality in Moree Plains Shire, New South Wales, Australia; named for one of the settlements in England.
glosses: A small settlement and river north of Rangiora, Canterbury, New Zealand.
Derived terms: Ashley County
Ashley Down
Ashley Heath