the.com/sick bay
A ship's hospital, because 'medical bay' sounded too much like it had its act together.
means The compartment on a ship (or other vessel) set aside for treating the injured and ill.
from A straightforward compound of 'sick' and 'bay,' where 'bay' means a partitioned-off section of a larger space — the same sense you get in 'loading bay' or 'priest's bay' in old architecture. It surfaces in nautical usage as ships grew big enough to need a dedicated medical compartment rather than just a hammock belowdecks; the term later jumped ship (so to speak) into submarines, spacecraft fiction, and even school nurse's offices, carried along by its clean, no-nonsense sound.
- origin
- naval term, predates land hospitals using the word
- star trek
- made it sound futuristic instead of nautical
- location
- traditionally below deck, near the bow
- etymology
- bay once meant any enclosed compartment, not water