Definitions

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

  • noun An open, generally public way for the passage of vehicles, people, and animals.
  • noun The surface of a road; a roadbed.
  • noun A course or path.
  • noun A railroad.
  • noun Nautical A roadstead.
  • idiom (down the road) In the future; at a later date.
  • idiom (on the road) On tour, as a theatrical company.
  • idiom (on the road) Traveling, especially as a salesperson.
  • idiom (on the road) Wandering, as a vagabond.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The tour or route of a theatrical company. See on the road.
  • noun A road over which logs are dragged, having heavy transverse skids, partially sunk in the ground, usually at intervals of about five feet.
  • To furnish with a road or with roads.
  • To follow the trail of by scent; track or pursue on foot, as game: said of dogs.
  • To jostle (one) off the road by riding against him.
  • noun A ride; journey; expedition.
  • noun A hostile expedition; an incursion; an inroad; a raid. See raid.
  • noun A public way for passage or travel; a strip of ground appropriated for travel, forming a line of communication between different places; a highway; hence, any similar passage for travel, public or private; by extension, a railroad or railway. See street.
  • noun Hence Any means or way of approach or access; a course; a path.
  • noun A place near the shore where vessels may anchor, differing from a harbor in not being sheltered. Also called roadstead.
  • noun The regulations embodied in a code of rules for the safe handling of vessels meeting or passing each other.
  • noun Synonyms Street, Passage, etc. (see way), lane, route, course, thoroughfare.

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

  • noun obsolete A journey, or stage of a journey.
  • noun obsolete An inroad; an invasion; a raid.
  • noun A place where one may ride; an open way or public passage for vehicles, persons, and animals; a track for travel, forming a means of communication between one city, town, or place, and another.
  • noun A place where ships may ride at anchor at some distance from the shore; a roadstead; -- often in the plural.
  • noun traveling or passing over a road; coming or going; traveling; on the way.
  • noun [Western U.S.] a highwayman, especially on the stage routes of the unsettled western parts of the United States; -- a humorous euphemism.
  • noun a guidebook in respect to roads and distances.
  • noun See roadkill in the vocabulary.
  • noun the broken, stone used in macadamizing roads.
  • noun a heavy roller, or combinations of rollers, for making earth, macadam, or concrete roads smooth and compact.
  • noun (Zoöl.) the chaparral cock.
  • noun a locomotive engine adapted to running on common roads.
  • noun [Colloq.] to engage in the business of a commercial traveler.
  • noun to begin or engage in traveling.
  • noun to engage in robbery upon the highways.

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

  • noun a way or means to achieve something
  • noun an open way (generally public) for travel or transportation

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English rode, rade, a riding, road, from Old English rād; see reidh- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English rād ("riding, hostile incursion"), from Proto-Germanic *raidō (“a ride, road”), from Proto-Indo-European *reidh- (“to ride”). Cognate to West Frisian reed (unpaved road).

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word road.

Examples

  • The difficulties of our road now increased, "if _road_ that might be called, which road was none," but black loose ashes, and masses of scoria and lava heaped in ridges, or broken into hollows in a manner not to be described.

    The Diary of an Ennuyée 1827

  • This _first broad road_ must again from the necessity of the case, for there was no other at that time, have been the road from Cheraw hill to Camden.

    A Sketch of the life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion and a history of his brigade William Dobein James 1801

  • Of these, the farthest to the East is the “Baltimore Pike, ” which passes by the East entrance to the Cemetery; the farthest to the West is the “Emmetsburg road, ” which is wholly outside of our line of battle, but near the Cemetery, is within a hundred yards of it; the “Taneytown road” is between these, running nearly due North and South, by the Eastern base of “Round Top, ” by the Western side of the Cemetery, and uniting with the Emmetsburg road between the Cemetery and the town.

    Haskell's Account of the Battle of Gettysburg. Paras. 26-50 1909

  • * takes Lotus Elise, crams it full of 10,000 laptop batteries, sells it for twice as much, makes tons of verbal promises to improve the technology and launch another model of car somewhere down the road ... maybe 2 years, maybe 4 years, maybe 10 years down the road* the Tesla IPO will be huge in News but not that huge in market if it happens too quickly given the current/near-future financial market basis.

    Autoblog 2010

  • Steinem, who embarked last week on a 1,500-mile road trip through the swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin check out Gloria’s ‘”notes from the road‘” and those photos with Le Tigre!

    Gloria’s Notes from the Road | PopPolitics.com 2004

  • Steinem, who embarked last week on a 1,500-mile road trip through the swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin check out Gloria’s ‘”2 notes from the road‘” and those photos with Le Tigre!

    Print - Gloria’s Notes from the Road | PopPolitics.com 2004

  • Steinem, who embarked last week on a 1,500-mile road trip through the swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin check out Gloria’s ‘”notes from the road‘” and those photos with Le Tigre!

    Gloria’s Notes from the Road | PopPolitics.com 2004

  • The term road rage was coined in Los Angeles - a city long known for its epic freeway jams.

    News 2011

  • The term road rage was coined in Los Angeles - a city long known for its epic freeway jams.

    News 2011

  • The term road rage was coined in Los Angeles - a city long known for its epic freeway jams.

    News 2011

  • Another option is “road cruising,” which is a particularly good way to find otherwise secretive snakes and amphibians.

    Why You Should Scale Up Your Birding By Looking for Reptiles Asher Elbein 2023

  • Another option is “road cruising,” which is a particularly good way to find otherwise secretive snakes and amphibians.

    Why You Should Scale Up Your Birding By Looking for Reptiles Asher Elbein 2023

  • Many roads are being constructed illegally or informally and do not appear on any existing road map6,7,8,9,10; the toll of such ‘ghost roads’ on ecosystems is poorly understood.

    Ghost roads and the destruction of Asia-Pacific tropical forests Jayden E. Engert 2024

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.