turnpike

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   an expressway on which tolls are collected

   The turnpike charged a toll for every cart.

2. 2
   noun

   (from 16th to 19th centuries) gates set across a road to prevent passage until a toll had been paid

   The turnpike charged a toll for every cart.

3. 3
   noun

   A frame consisting of two bars crossing each other at right angles and turning on a post or pin, to hinder the passage of animals, but admitting a person to pass between the arms.

   1626, Ben Jonson, The Staple of News, Act III, Scene 1, Yale Studies in English Vol. 28, New York: Henry Holt, 1905, p. 58, I moue vpon my axell, like a turne-pike, / Fit my face to the parties, and become / Straight one of them.

4. 4
   noun

   A gate or bar set across a road to stop carriages, animals, and sometimes people, until a toll is paid.

   1722, Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year, London: E. Nutt et al., pp. 9-10, […] it was rumour’d that an order of the Government was to be issued out, to place Turn-pikes and Barriers on the Road, to prevent Peoples travelling;

From Middle English turnpyke (“spiked barrier across a road”), originally used to block access to such a road until a toll was paid. Equivalent to modern turn + pike (“shaft”).

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