road

Definition

A way used for travelling between places, originally one wide enough to allow foot passengers and horses to travel, now (US) usually one surfaced with asphalt or concrete and designed to accommodate many vehicles travelling in both directions. In the UK both senses are heard: a country road is the same as a country lane.

Etymology

From Middle English rode, rade (“ride, journey”), from Old English rād (“riding, hostile incursion”), from Proto-West Germanic *raidu, from Proto-Germanic *raidō (“a ride”), from Proto-Indo-European *reydʰ- (“to ride”). Doublet of raid, acquired from Scots. Cognates include West Frisian reed (paved trail/road, driveway). The current primary meaning of "street, way for traveling" originated relatively late — Shakespeare seemed to expect his audiences to find it unfamiliar — and probably arose through reinterpretation of roadway (“a way for riding on”) as saying way twice, in other words as a tautological compound.

Example Sentences

• "In the lightness of my heart I sang catches of songs as my horse gayly bore me along the well-remembered road."
• "I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for."
• "And the road doesn't end / It's a long, long road and we follow it again and again / And the road don't pretend"

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