ENGLISH
REFERENCE

road

n. countable
A1 Beginner Oxford US //ˈɹoʊd// UK //ɹˈəʊd// road Archaic General-service

n. a hard surface built for vehicles like cars and trucks to travel on. It connects different places so you can drive from one to another.

n. a wide, prepared track or way for vehicles, persons, and animals to travel between places.


SIMPLE

The road to the city is very busy today.

CONTEXTUAL

The construction crew spent the entire summer repairing the main road that leads into the valley.

COMPLEX

While the ancient road was originally built for horse-drawn carriages, it has since been paved to accommodate the heavy flow of modern commercial traffic.

Synonyms
Origin

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.

Usage

Often used with the preposition 'on' to describe location or 'to' to describe a destination.

Idioms20 entries

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