Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A side road taken to avoid the tolls or traffic of a turnpike.
- v. To travel on side roads, avoiding turnpikes.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A road or byway so situated, by intent or not, that travelers may avoid paying toll on the turnpike which is the main thoroughfare. Such a road may be closed by injunction.
Wiktionary
- v. To take an unnecessarily long route in order to avoid traffic and/or toll booths.
Etymologies
- Blend of shun and turnpike (Wiktionary)
- shun + (turn)pike. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Hurrying to a livery-stable, he hired a horse and buggy and a lantern, and drove to the shunpike.”
“There was a road which branched off from the turnpike, about a mile from the town, and which, after some windings, entered the pike again beyond the toll-gate, and although this road was not always in very good condition, it had seen a good deal of travel, which, in time, gave it the name of the shunpike.”
“But since Captain Asher had lived at the toll-gate it was remarked that the shunpike was not used as much as in former times.”
“He wandered about so long and asked so many questions that it was getting dark when he suddenly thought of the shunpike.”
“She seemed to have something on her mind, and presently she proposed to Mr. Morris that he should take the shunpike for a change.”
“It would be impossible for the girl who had talked so sweetly, so earnestly, so straight from her heart, when he had met her on the shunpike, to marry such a mountebank as this fellow, generous as he might be with that which could never belong to him.”
“He did not for a moment think she might return by the shunpike, for that was a rough road, not fit for a bicycle.”
“If you can only manage that that woman takes the shunpike whenever she drives this way, I shall be perfectly satisfied with everything just as it is.”
“(A shunpike is not a person but a free road that parallels a toll road.)”
“a girl on a bicycle; and thus it was that he passed the entrance to the shunpike without noticing that a bicycle track turned into it.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘shunpike’.
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harry potter words
quidditch, apparate, disapparate, lumos, snitch, pensieve, dementor, azkaban, wingardium, leviosa, horcrux, bludger and 376 more...
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Sound or sequence
dulcimer, borborygmi, ecchymosis, scrivener, fustilugs, zarf, bawdyhouse, googleable, archfiend, gymkhana, cuckoopint, pilpul and 104 more...
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Wordie/Wordnik Curio Cabinet
Oddments culled from my "main" lists that belong in a display cabinet of their own, plus sundry other curiosities. :-)
zeugma, ziggurat, xiphoid, xeric, whizgigging, whangdoodle, viviparous, vivific, vinolent, verjuice, vellicate, velleity and 1193 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for shunpike.
bilby A person who prefers travelling by back roads rather than tollways or major roads. From shun + (turn)pike. Feb 3, 2008