Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A paved walkway along the side of a street.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A footwalk by the side of a street or road; specifically, a paved or otherwise prepared way for pedestrians in a town, usually separated from the roadway by a curb and gutter. Also (in Great Britain nearly always) called pavement.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun U.S. A walk for foot passengers at the side of a street or road; a foot pavement.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun US a paved footpath at the side of a road for the use of pedestrians; a pavement (UK) or footpath (Australia)

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun walk consisting of a paved area for pedestrians; usually beside a street or roadway

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From side +‎ walk.

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Examples

  • Retta, who has seven children and 11 grandkids, says he's moved by his Catholic faith to do what he calls sidewalk counseling.

    NPR Topics: News 2011

  • Retta, who has seven children and 11 grandkids, says he's moved by his Catholic faith to do what he calls sidewalk counseling.

    NPR Topics: News 2011

  • Retta, who has seven children and 11 grandkids, says he's moved by his Catholic faith to do what he calls sidewalk counseling.

    NPR Topics: News 2011

  • Retta, who has seven children and 11 grandkids, says he's moved by his Catholic faith to do what he calls sidewalk counseling.

    NPR Topics: News 2011

  • Retta, who has seven children and 11 grandkids, says he's moved by his Catholic faith to do what he calls sidewalk counseling.

    NPR Topics: News 2011

  • Retta, who has seven children and 11 grandkids, says he is moved by his Catholic faith to do what he calls sidewalk counseling.

    NPR Topics: News 2011

  • I had walking pneumonia and a broken heart, and I was taking the bus home from work in a howling nor'easter and I had a mile to walk with no sidewalk from the bus stop to my door.

    the cadillacs come creeping through the night and the poison gas ashacat 2009

  • Workshop: Finding medicinal herbs growing in sidewalk cracks

    Boing Boing 2009

  • Cement versions of Virgin Mary have been donated by different towns such as Colima, Tepic, Zapopan, and others, and they line the wide sidewalk from the arch into town.

    From Talpa to Puerto Vallarta in the 1800s 2009

  • She is a huge Twilight fan and loves to write Bella and Edward in sidewalk chalk – she says he is hers not Bella Swan!

    Twilight Lexicon » Jacob and Isabella Top Popular Baby Names Lists Again 2010

Comments

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  • Here's a chance for me to post another one of those regional dialect maps. What do you call the area of grass between the sidewalk and the road?

    I, personally, have no word for it, but apparently Iowans call it the parking, Ohioans call it the tree lawn, and Wisconsinites call it the terrace. See maps here.

    May 8, 2008

  • Also, I think Wisconsinite is a really funny word. :-)

    May 8, 2008

  • It should be called Dog Doo Alley -- in every state!

    May 8, 2008

  • Parking strip.

    May 8, 2008

  • I think we call it, Marylanders that is (no, no relation to Ann Landers), the utility area or strip or something like that. It's usually the place the cable, phone, & gas, guys rip to shreds once a year or so.

    May 8, 2008

  • In Australia I've never heard it called anything other than nature strip.

    May 8, 2008

  • In Australia I've never heard it called anything other than nature strip.

    May 8, 2008

  • The map has my location pegged: curb strip it is.

    May 8, 2008

  • Bilby: are you beside yourself today?

    May 8, 2008

  • See also: footpath.

    May 8, 2008

  • Doppelganger blues, dc :-(

    May 8, 2008

  • It's a verge here (while the sidewalk is, naturally, the pavement).

    May 8, 2008

  • Hey sarra and mollusque -- where are you from?

    May 8, 2008

  • Funny, mollusque--I think we're in the same general region and I've never heard "curb strip" used. *thinking*

    May 8, 2008

  • I'm with bilby: the nature strip lies between the footpath and the road.

    May 8, 2008

  • Southern New Jersey near Philadelphia.

    May 9, 2008

  • Ooooh, Southern New Jersey. Now I understand. ;-)

    May 9, 2008

  • Yup. Exit 4.

    May 9, 2008

  • I grew up in Baltimore (the 'burbs, actually - Parkville and Lutherville, to be precise), and I don't remember this grassy strip ever being called anything, except "the grass between the sidewalk and the road" (as in, "Don't forget to mow . . ."). But according to your map, ptero, I should have been calling it berm! I didn't even know this word existed, but it's a good one. Thanks!

    May 9, 2008

  • What I love about New Jerseyans: One describes one's neighborhood by the nearest turnpike exit. :-)

    May 9, 2008

  • UK here (I don't think “verge” is any more local than that, though I may be wrong).

    May 9, 2008

  • I've seen road signs saying 'Keep off the verge'. No-one takes any notice in the UK. I'm always seeing cars on the verge of being driven off the verge they were requested to keep off of.

    May 9, 2008

  • I've never heard it have a name either. In my mind, a nature strip is the same as a median strip: the island in the middle of a wide road.

    May 9, 2008

  • Our family always called it "the right of way" because of the public utilities, similar to dontcry.

    May 9, 2008

  • Personally, I find "nature strip" hilarious when I think of the suburbs I grew up in, as if one might expect to see, as one strolls down the sidewalk, interesting fauna and flora all labeled with their proper Linnaean names and places of origin, instead of an undistinguished narrow tract of suburban grass and dandelions with the occasional manhole cover and fire hydrant. Nature, indeed.

    May 9, 2008

  • the owners of this property are pleased to allow the public a revocable license to use this private sidewalk area.

    October 29, 2008