Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Road

Road, n. [AS. rād a riding, that on which one rides or travels, a road, fr. rīdan to ride. See Ride, and cf. Raid.] 1. A journey, or stage of a journey. [Obs.]

With easy roads he came to Leicester. Shak.

2. An inroad; an invasion; a raid. [Obs.] Spenser.

3. A place where one may ride; an open way or public passage for vehicles, persons, and animals; a track for travel, forming a means of communication between one city, town, or place, and another.

The most villainous house in all the London road. Shak.

☞ The word is generally applied to highways, and as a generic term it includes highway, street, and lane.

4. [Possibly akin to Icel. reiði the rigging of a ship, E. ready.] A place where ships may ride at anchor at some distance from the shore; a roadstead; — often in the plural; as, Hampton Roads. Shak.

Now strike your saile, ye jolly mariners, For we be come unto a quiet rode [road]. Spenser.

On, or Upon, the road, traveling or passing over a road; coming or going; on the way.

My hat and wig will soon be here, They are upon the road. Cowper.

— Road agent, a highwayman, especially on the stage routes of the unsettled western parts of the United States; — a humorous euphemism. [Western U.S.]

The highway robber — road agent he is quaintly called. The century.

— Road book, a guidebook in respect to roads and distances. — Road metal, the broken, stone used in macadamizing roads. — Road roller, a heavy roller, or combinations of rollers, for making earth, macadam, or concrete roads smooth and compact. — often driven by steam. — Road runner (Zoöl.), the chaparral cock. — Road steamer, a locomotive engine adapted to running on common roads. — To go on the road, to engage in the business of a commercial traveler. [Colloq.] — To take the road, to begin or engage in traveling. — To take to the road, to engage in robbery upon the highways.

Syn. — Way; highway; street; lane; pathway; route; passage; course. See Way.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.