turnpike

Definition

A frame consisting of two bars crossing each other at right angles and turning on a post or pin, to hinder the passage of animals, but admitting a person to pass between the arms.

Etymology

From Middle English turnpyke (“spiked barrier across a road”), originally used to block access to such a road until a toll was paid. Equivalent to modern turn + pike (“shaft”).

Example Sentences

• "1626, Ben Jonson, The Staple of News, Act III, Scene 1, Yale Studies in English Vol. 28, New York: Henry Holt, 1905, p. 58, I moue vpon my axell, like a turne-pike, / Fit my face to the parties, and become / Straight one of them."
• "1722, Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year, London: E. Nutt et al., pp. 9-10, […] it was rumour’d that an order of the Government was to be issued out, to place Turn-pikes and Barriers on the Road, to prevent Peoples travelling;"
• "[…] Pope Pelagius, then Bishop of Rome […] thereupon assum'd the Power of opening and shutting Heaven's Gates; and he afterwards setting a Price or Toll upon the Entrance, as we do here at passing a Turn-pike […]"