San Francisco Bay
12
1.3
- proper noun
:
bahía de San Francisco
- Anyone who has visited the San Francisco Bay area has experienced local climate moderation.
- San Francisco Bay Area
- San Francisco Bay region
- waters of San Francisco Bay
Examples
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You are looking roughly toward the southern end of San Francisco Bay.
Academic text (2004) -
Many tourists visit the San Francisco Bay to enjoy activities like sailing and kayaking.
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We serve only the greater San Francisco Bay area.
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Watch the stars over San Francisco Bay.
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The most dramatic skies on the San Francisco Bay occur during the winter months.
Academic text (2003) -
The community college is a medium-sized institution in California located in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Academic text (1997) -
Mister Thorne is a writer living in the San Francisco Bay Area, California.
Academic text (2003) -
Current tracking models indicate that all three targets... are converging here, San Francisco Bay.
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Linda Koffman lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and is a college instructor, writer, and photographer.
Fiction book (2000) -
Silja J. A. Talvi is a freelance writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Academic text (1997)
Surface Forms
Morphology
San + Francisco + bay
The meaning is directly compositional: it names a bay associated with the place 'San Francisco' and 'bay' means a coastal inlet. Even though 'San' and 'Francisco' are proper-name elements rather than lexical words, a B1 learner who knows 'bay' and recognizes (or infers) the place name will readily understand it denotes a coastal inlet near San Francisco; the 'PLACE + bay' pattern is cross-linguistically common and predictable.
Etymology
The name San Francisco Bay comes from early Spanish explorers who named the area for San Francisco, meaning 'Saint Francis'. The word bay means a wide, curved part of the sea next to the land, so San Francisco Bay today is the large natural harbor by the city.