English vocabulary: difference between coast, shore, beach, and bank

It’s summertime and a lot of my students are travelling to the seaside where they’ll be spending at least a small part of their summer break. And I know what’s coming: me explaining the difference between several English words that they almost always use incorrectly when they tell me about their summer holidays. 

It doesn’t help that in their South Slavic mother tongues three of these words (coast, shore, and bank) typically have only one and the same equivalent, the word obala. I’m sure it’s the same in many other languages, so let’s look into the differences between all these English words.

---

Let’s start with the least specific one: shore. A shore is the land along the edge of a sea, lake or wide river. If you’re swimming in the water towards the land, you are swimming towards the shore. You might come out of the water and find yourself on a beach, but not necessarily – because on that shore there might be something else, maybe a port or a pier.

So think of shore as a word with a wider meaning, whereas beach is much more specific. That’s the level area beside a body of water; it can be a sandy beach, or a shingle / gravel beach (that is, pebbly). You can place your towel there and do some sunbathing, for example.

Now, what’s with the coast? In a way, it’s similar to shore, but it usually refers to a wide geographical area. In many cases there’s an overlap in meaning between the words shore, shoreline, coast, and coastline. However it’s helpful to bear in mind this simple definition found in the Merriam Webster Dictionary: coast is “the land near a shore.” So the focus tends to be on the landmass next to large bodies of water, such as oceans. 

For instance, you’ve probably heard the terms East and West Coast of the U.S. That specific word is used because it actually refers to entire U.S. states that border the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean respectively, not just the narrow strip of land that borders those oceans.

Finally – the bank. That one is probably the easiest, as it’s usually (but not exclusively) used in a very specific sense. It’s simply the raised ground bordering a river. It does have additional meanings, and it can be used in connection with lakes and seas, but you’ll most often hear it used in the context of rivers. Simply put, oceans, seas, and lakes have shores (or coasts), whereas rivers typically have banks. But all of them can have beaches!

---

All of this can be confusing because of the overlaps in meaning, as well as varied local use that often doesn’t match the neat dictionary descriptions.

To learn more about the differences between these words, I can recommend the following articles and language forum threads:

Ask a Teacher: Beach, Shore, Coast [VOA Learning English]

Beach, Shore, or Coast? Mastering Seaside Vocabulary [English Plus Podcast]

shore / beach / coast [Word Reference Forum]

---

NOTE

If you wish to receive new content from the Grammaticus blog in your inbox, please enter your email address in the box below. You can also subscribe to my free monthly Newsletter.

To support my work, you can send me a donation via PayPal. It would be greatly appreciated!

---

COVER PHOTO CREDIT

Derek Thomson via Unsplash