Bosporus
BOS'PORUS, noun [Gr. an ox, and a passage.]
A narrow sea or a strait, between two seas or between a sea and a lake, so called, it is supposed, as being an ox-passage, a strait over which an ox may swim. So our northern ancestors called a strait, a sound, that is, a swim. The term bosporus has been particularly applied to the strait between the Propontis and the Euxine, called the Thracian Bosporus; and to the strait of Caffa, called the Cimmerian bosporus which connects the Palus Maeotis or sea of Azof, with the Euxine.