Meanings
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1
noun
A hard surface built for vehicles and people to travel along.
We drove down a narrow country road.
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2
noun
Travel by road, especially by car or truck.
We sent the furniture by road rather than by rail.
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3
noun
A way or process that leads to a goal.
Hard work is the road to success.
Thesaurus
Common collocations
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 ta…