quai

le quai (FR N-M) construction that permits the approach to a port, consisting of a sustaining wall and other structures at the edge of the water; a levee of earth, ordinarily sustained by a masonry wall, along the banks of a waterway; public walkway between houses and such a waterway; platform along the tracks in a train station for the loading and unloading of passengers and cargo. First appears in French in 1167, from Norman and Picard, and Gallic caio. (Apollinaire, Jacob, Sully-Prudhomme)