street

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a thoroughfare (usually including sidewalks) that is lined with buildings

   they walked the streets of the small town

2. 2
   noun

   people living or working on the same street

   the whole street protested the absence of street lights

3. 3
   noun

   a situation offering opportunities

   I worked both sides of the street to increase my profit margin.

4. 4
   noun

   the streets of a city viewed as a depressed environment in which there is poverty and crime and prostitution and dereliction

   They tried to keep their children off the street.

5. 5
   noun

   A paved part of road, usually in a village or a town.

   Walk down the street until you see a hotel on the right.

6. 6
   noun

   A road as above, but including the sidewalks (pavements) and buildings.

   I live on the street down from Joyce Avenue.

7. 7
   noun

   Living in the streets.

   a street cat

8. 8
   noun

   Streetwise slang.

   Toaster is street for guns.

Etymology

From Middle English strete, from Anglian Old English strēt (“street”) (cognate West Saxon Old English strǣt) from Proto-West Germanic *strātu (“street”), an early borrowing from Late Latin (via) strāta (“paved (road)”), from Latin strātus, past participle of sternō (“stretch out, spread, bestrew with, cover, pave”), from Proto-Indo-European *sterh₃- (“to stretch out, extend, spread”). The /aː/ vowel of the Latin form shifted by Anglo-Frisian brightening to /æː/ in West Saxon and /eː/ in Anglian Old English; these developed respectively to /ɛː/ and /eː/ in Middle English, /ɛː/ and /iː/ in Early…