byway

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a minor, less-traveled road or path branching from a main route

   The carriage turned down a narrow byway to avoid attention in the crowded district.

2. 2
   noun

   a less familiar or secondary area of a subject

   Her research explores an obscure byway of nineteenth-century medical history.

From Middle English bywey, formed from by- ("secondary, beside") + way. The literal minor-road sense later supplied the figurative use for a little-known branch or detail of a subject.

Topics