[spy4me]

the original meaning of Oxford is "Place where you can herd your ox through a shallow part of the river". An OX is a kind of large cow, and a FORD is a shallow part of a river, where you can cross easily without a bridge. You can see some cows doing this in the bottom picture. So, in ancient Britain, this place was known as Ox-Ford. There are many places in Britain with the ending –ford, for example Bradford or Stratford, and this always means ‘shallow place in a river.’