I know what a “quay” is - but I’ve heard it pronounced both “kay” and “kee”. Which is correct, or more correct if both are common.
Also, did the name of the Florida Keys come from this word?
M-W lists the “kee” first, “kway” second.
“Key” as in an island comes from Spanish “Cayo,” meaning “island.” “Key West” ultimately was from the Spanish “Cayo Hueso,” which means “Bone Island.”
To make matters more confusing:
“Key” and “Cay” have a common origin in the Spanish “cayo.”
“Quay,” which may be pronounced “kee,” “kay,” or “kway,” has an unrelated origin in Celtic apparently meaning “hedge” or “fence.” (
Here’s the etymology, incluiding key:
Have fun!
It’s pronounced “kee” here.
We also pronounce it “key”. Maybe it’s a British thing?
There used to be a bar near my Uni called “The Quay”. Which would lead to all sorts of confusion, since no one really agreed on how it should be pronounced:
“Let’s all meet up ‘Key’ tonight.”
“Where’s that?”
“Just up on the corner of Fletcher and 15th”
“I know a place called the ‘Qway’ there”
Later, inevitably someone would drive right past, not realising that Quay should be pronounced “Key”.
Until this thread, I’d never heard it pronounced any other way than ‘key’. ‘Kay’ sounds to me like possible Spanish/Hispanic adaptations of the pronunciation. And ‘kway’ just sounds silly 
[aaaaah, it’s a hijack, run away]
We’re studying Don Quixote in my Humanities class, and my teacher pronounces it “kee-show-t”. I’ve always pronounced it “kee-ho-tee”. Am I an idiot?
[/aaaah, hijack]
No, you’re not. He/she is.
[Further hijack]
Byron’s Don Juan is only pronounced ‘Don Hu-an’ by the ignorant. The rhyme structures require ‘Don Jew-an’.
[/Further Hijack]
The only time I’ve heard it pronounced kay was by a male Irish singer i’ve forgotten singing the beautiful but kitschly-titled Paddy’s Green Shamrock Shore:
It might be an Irish thing, or it may have just been a convenience for the rhyme.
I can’t help thinking that it’s simply a confusing word because it’s kee instead of kway and that that confusion has somehow been enhanced by confusion with that confusion and the confusion over key and cay. Confused? I am.
Not at all. In Britain it is only ever pronounced “key”.
It is, as others have said, etymologically unrelated to “cay” and “key” in the sense of an island – as well it should be, as the meaning is also entirely unrelated. A quay is a wharf, not an island. Earl correctly identified the origin - from Celtic meaning hedge or fence, via Old French kai.
There are several place names in Britain including the word, for example Newquay (one word) in Cornwall, and New Quay (two words) which is in Wales.
Once as a kid when I was visiting India, one of my cousins said he was studying “Don Quick-zote” [kwIkzot] in class.
Two syllables! That’s the ultimate Anclicization.
“Quayside” is correctly used and pronounced in the lyrics of XTC’s “All You Pretty Girls”. But then, Andy Partridge, et al, are English. An American songwriter would probably use “bayside” or expressions like “by the pier/dock/wharf/shore…”.
This isn’t always a bad thing, either. Had “quay” and “quayside” been more commonly used on this side of the Atlantic, Otis Redding might have struggled to breathe life into the ungainly phrase “Sittin’ on the Quayside Dock”. ::shudder::
Not always. I used to go skiing every weekend at a place called Norquay. All of my friend and most other people I knew pronounced it Norkway. There were a few people who called it Nor Kee - and I always thought that was some sort of eccentricity. That is until I moved to Toronto and asked somebody about Queens Qway and was met with a most befuddled stare.
Reading your first sentence, I started thinking of Otis! … and until now, it never occured to me that “sitting by the dock of the bay” makes absolutely no sense in British English.
And a quick search of streetmap.co.uk gives about 80 ‘Quay Street’ or 'Quay Road’s. And I’d stake my shirt on every one being pronounced the same way 
I think you’re missing the point of the suggestion that it’s a “British thing” - the Canadian (or at least Toronto) and Australian pronunciations seem to match the British one, and it’s the American version that’s different.
Yes, see, that’s where I learned the word, only from a different song, Star of the County Down:
“From Derry “kay”
up to Banbridge bay…”
I’ve since heard it pronounced “kay” in other Irish songs. Yet in my audiobook version of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander, the reader (who is either British or Scots - she does both accents admirably well) says “key.”
There’s a good explanation for the Irish pronunciation being different - the Irish for quay or dock is Cé, pronounced ‘kay’, so it’s likely that this has dominated over the English pronunciation of ‘quay’.
AHA!!!
So basically when I see “from Derry quay up to Banbridge Bay,” the word “quay” is simply the word “ce” being misspelled by English-speaking transcribers, and since it means the same thing, it’s no biggie?
Thank you!