KEY, or Quay, a long wharf, usually built of stone, by the side of a harbour or river, and having several store-houses for the convenience of lading and discharging merchant ships. It is accordingly furnished with posts and rings, by which the latter are secured; together with cranes, capstans, and other engines, to lift the goods into or out of the vessels which lie alongside. The verb cojare, in old writers, according to Scaliger, signifies to keep in or restrain; and hence came our term key or quay, the ground where they are made being bound in with planks and posts.