road

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A hard surface built for vehicles and people to travel along.

   We drove down a narrow country road.

2. 2
   noun

   Travel by road, especially by car or truck.

   We sent the furniture by road rather than by rail.

3. 3
   noun

   A way or process that leads to a goal.

   Hard work is the road to success.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Road comes from an Old English word meaning “a journey on horseback” and is related to ride. Its familiar sense of a broad track used for travel is not recorded until the late 16th century, though it may have existed earlier.

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…

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary