Definition of "ford"

He swam the Esk river where ford there was none.

1808 February 22, Walter Scott, “(please specify the introduction or canto number, or chapter name)”, in Marmion; a Tale of Flodden Field, Edinburgh: […] J[ames] Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Company, […]; London: William Miller, and John Murray

With water of the ford / Or of the clouds.

1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, stanza 34

Permit my ghost to pass the Stygian ford.

1700, [John] Dryden, “Ceyx and Alcyone”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […]

He named that place, for it was near her dwelling, and on the road between Balerynie and Heriotside, which fords the Sker Burn.

1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide

Since the time of Seyavi the deer have shifted their feeding ground across the valley at the beginning of deep snows, by way of the Black Rock, fording the river at Charley's Butte, and making straight for the mouth of the cañon that is the easiest going to the winter pastures on Waban.

1903, Mary Hunter Austin, The Land of Little Rain‎, Houghton Mifflin, pages 31–2

Ratau drove with reckless authority through the quiet morning fires of his father's and forefathers' town and forded a river of goats on the road leading out of it.

1982, Nadine Gordimer, “A Hunting Accident”, in A Soldier's Embrace, Penguin, page 59

Some who witnessed the 1966 Leonid meteor storm said they felt as if they needed to grip the ground, so strong was the impression of Earth plowing along through space, fording the meteoroid stream.

2016, Bruce McClure and Deborah Byrd, "EarthSky's meteor shower guide for 2016" in earthsky.org