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highway
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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See also: Highway
English
Alternative forms
- hwy., hwy (abbreviation)
- hi'way, hi-way, hiway, hi way (abbreviation)
Etymology
From Middle English heiȝwai, heiȝwei, from Old English hēahweġ (“main road, highway”), corresponding to high + way. Compare highgate, high street, high road.
Cognate with Scots heaway, heway, hieway, hichway, heichway (“highway”).
Pronunciation
Noun
highway (plural highways)
- (archaic) A road that is higher than the surrounding land and has drainage ditches at the sides.
- A main public road, especially a multi-lane, high-speed thoroughfare.
- 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 7, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
- The highway to the East Coast which ran through the borough of Ebbfield had always been a main road and even now, despite the vast garages, the pylons and the gaily painted factory glasshouses which had sprung up beside it, there still remained an occasional trace of past cultures.
- (figurative) A way; a path that leads to a certain destiny
- You're on a highway to greatness.
- 1979, “Highway to Hell”, in Highway to Hell, performed by AC/DC:
- I'm on the highway to hell
- 2024 May 8, Damian Carrington, “‘Hopeless and broken’: why the world’s top climate scientists are in despair. World’s top climate scientists expect global heating to blast past 1.5C target”, in The Guardian, UK:
- So how do the scientists cope with their work being ignored for decades, and living in a world their findings indicate is on a “highway to hell”?.
- (law, rail transport) Any public road for vehicular traffic.
- (computing) Synonym of bus (“common connection for two or more circuits or components”).
Hyponyms
- (main public road): expressway, motorway
Derived terms
- antihighway
- belt highway
- controlled-access highway
- divided highway
- Hershey highway
- Highway Code
- highway engineer
- highway hypnosis
- highwayless
- highwaylike
- highwayman
- highway patrol
- highway robber, highway robbery, highway-robbery
- highwaywoman
- highway yellow
- hijack
- hwy. (“abbreviation”)
- Karakoram Highway
- King's highway
- limited-access highway
- lost highway
- Marilaque Highway
- my way or the highway, one's way or the highway
- nonhighway
- plain as Dunstable highway
- semi-highway
- St Kew Highway
- superhighway
- superinformation highway
- tourist highway
Translations
main public road
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Verb
highway (third-person singular simple present highways, present participle highwaying, simple past and past participle highwayed)
- To travel on a highway
References
- “highway”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
- William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “highway”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
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