road
(roʊd )
Word forms: roads
1. countable noun [oft in names, oft by NOUN] A1
A road is a long piece of hard ground which is built between two places so that people can drive or ride easily from one place to the other.
There was very little traffic on the roads.
We just go straight up the Bristol Road.
He was coming down the road the same time as the girl was turning into the lane.
Buses carry 30 per cent of those travelling by road.
...road accidents.
Synonyms: roadway, street, highway, motorway
2. countable noun [usually singular]
The road to a particular result is the means of achieving it or the process of achieving it.
We are bound to see some ups and downs along the road to recovery. [+ to]
3. to hit the road phrase
If you hit the road, you set out on a journey. [informal]
I was relieved to get back in the car and hit the road again.
4. on the road phrase B2
If you are on the road, you are going on a long journey or a series of journeys by road.
He hoped to get a new truck and go back on the road.
5. on the road phrase
If you say that someone is on the road to something, you mean that they are likely to achieve it.
The government took another step on the road to political reform.
...the stunning fashion pictures which launched unknown teenager Jane March on the road to stardom.
6. the end of the road phrase
If a process or person has reached the end of the road, they are unable to progress any further.
I am sure this is the end of the road for him.
Image of road
© SergeyIT, Shutterstock
Idioms:
the road to hell is paved with good intentions
said to mean that it is not enough for someone to make plans or promises, but they must also do those things
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and there are many, many pots of vitamin tablets which have been started but never finished.
Easy Learning Idioms Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers
the end of the road
the point where someone or something can no longer continue or survive in a situation
The administration realizes now that they've come to the end of the road of their policy.
the results of someone's actions that cannot be avoided
If she doesn't stop stealing, there's only jail at the end of the road.
Easy Learning Idioms Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers
down the road
after a particular amount of time
Twenty-five years down the road from independence, we have to start making some new priorities.
Easy Learning Idioms Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers
hit the road
to begin a journey
Urban commuters are having to hit the road earlier to be sure of beating the jams and finding a parking space.
Easy Learning Idioms Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers
take the high road [US]
to follow the course of action which is the most moral or most correct and which is least likely to harm or upset other people
US diplomats say the president is likely to take the high road in his statements about trade.
Easy Learning Idioms Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers
get the show on the road
to put a plan or an idea into action
He checked his watch. `Shouldn't we get this show on the road, now that Rolfe's here?'
Easy Learning Idioms Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers
keep the show on the road
to ensure that a plan or an idea continues to operate successfully
The government is going to have to find something to offer the unions during these talks if it is to keep the show on the road.
Easy Learning Idioms Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers
Collocations:
dusty road empty road hard road lonely road miles of road narrow road open road road route road tyre road winds rocky road rough road rural road scenic road slippery road smooth road steep road straight road stretch of road treacherous road twisting road twisty road two-lane road unpaved road widen a road winding road
The school is in a remote area and pupils have to walk up to 5km (three miles) along bumpy, dusty roads to reach it.
Times, Sunday Times (2011)
We landed and after a 20- minute walk along a dusty road we reached a lane with whitewashed houses along it.
Times, Sunday Times (2006)
They were walking in the dusty road.
The Times Literary Supplement (2012)
With its empty roads, it is great, stress-free road touring country.
Times, Sunday Times (2009)
In just six days, that might feel like a marathon, but instead I'd barely noticed the driving thanks to empty roads and the delicious sense of not knowing what was around the corner.
Times, Sunday Times (2015)
An empty road grew busy, reached a fishing village and ended.
Bomber
There's a hard road ahead but it leads to a better future.
The Sun (2010)
Forgiveness is the harder road, and one that must be taken intentionally.
Christianity Today (2000)
After the biggest financial crisis in our history it was always going to be a hard road to recovery.
The Sun (2012)
But sometimes the best - the very best of all - prefer to take the high and lonely road, the one without gimmicks, a talisman, a higher power.
Times, Sunday Times (2008)
He's walked lonely roads and suffered sleepless nights.
Christianity Today (2000)
Champions do not tread a lonely road.
Times, Sunday Times (2010)
The devices have spread to more than 100 locations, monitoring almost 400 miles of road.
Times, Sunday Times
Thirty miles of road were closed to normal traffic that day.
Times, Sunday Times
Officials said that snow buried more than two miles of road.
Times, Sunday Times
Since 2000 it has built 6,800 miles of road each day.
Times, Sunday Times
In all, it will lead to upgrades of 4,000 miles of road, improvements to 100 principal junctions and improved connections to 20 ports and airports.
Times,Sunday Times
With the aid of an old frayed map they waited at the side of a narrow road, a high bank protecting them, watching the crossroads a couple of hundred yards beyond.
A Roomful of Birds - Scottish short stories 1990 (1990)
Towards the end of their journey, a narrow road through the forest is blocked by a car.
The Times Literary Supplement (2011)
The two columns of carts and wagons only just had room to pass side by side on the narrow road.
Man of Honour (2007)
I now drive in Eco mode to stretch the mileage around town and switch to Drive on the open road.
The Sun (2010)
Few experiences in life can deliver the simple pleasure of driving an open-top sports car on an open road under a cloudless sky.
Times, Sunday Times (2006)
Urban driving long ago became the opposite of taking to the open road.
Times, Sunday Times (2015)
Most of this land was subsequently reclaimed, providing an excellent new rail and road route to the north.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
The road route to the airport has already become one of the city's main scenic attractions.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
Some of these roads, or portions of them, are designated and signposted as part of a road route.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
Many online mapping websites offer road route planning as an additional feature of their mapping functions.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
Investigation ditch and gulley across the road route led to the discovery of the site.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
Unlike the fuel, the tyres bear only a superficial resemblance to a normal road tyre.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
Everyone turned up in 4x4s and everyone spent the day slithering into walls and fences because everyone was using road tyres.
Times,Sunday Times
Nothing bothered it, even with those low-profile road tyres.
Times, Sunday Times
The six-speed derailleur gears worked well, while the road tyres did an excellent job and the brakes were particularly sharp.
Times, Sunday Times
And it plays very well, even with road tyres.
Times, Sunday Times
Then the road winds down to the coast.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
The road winds down the valley, hemmed in by hedges.
Times, Sunday Times
Beyond its maze of narrow cobbled streets between basalt-walled houses, a road winds up to pastures and heads for the vast caldera.
Times, Sunday Times
The largely empty road winds past fields of beans and corn and pasture.
Times, Sunday Times
The road winds through more forests with some residential developments, heading northeast before a turn to the east.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
It's going to be a rocky road for quite some time yet.
The Sun (2011)
It is the end of a rocky road for the pair.
The Sun (2009)
Life became something of a rocky road for me.
Times, Sunday Times (2013)
Before the clinic, injured or ill villagers faced a 90- minute drive over rough roads.
Times, Sunday Times (2009)
The journey can be precarious at times on the rough roads but it's so vast and peaceful.
The Sun (2008)
Rough roads and long journeys are part of it all.
Into Africa - a social history of the East African Safari (1989)
Take it on a rural road and you'll hear more new sounds - birds singing, the wind blowing through trees.
Times, Sunday Times
Now there are fresh calls to lower more rural road speed limits.
Times, Sunday Times
It's like driving behind another car on a dusty rural road.
Christianity Today
The slide took out a portion of rural road which took a year to reinstate.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
In general rural road development leads to improved access of both users and suppliers.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
And there are thousands more of nature's jewels nearby, as well as scenic road trips and adventurous hikes.
Times, Sunday Times
During the early 20th century, this scenic road was a major east-west thoroughfare.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
This road has been turned into a scenic road.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
The scenic road was constructed around the river foreshores (as part of a wider scheme never completed).
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
Vehicles over two tonnes in weight are prohibited from using this scenic road to avoid difficulties in passing.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
Metal manhole covers are a menace in the wet, and slippery road markings are also worth avoiding.
Times, Sunday Times
Several motorists, apparently, thought that the slippery road warning meant 'caution, drunk drivers'.
Times, Sunday Times
These included cautions for slippery road surfaces, (identified by 42 per cent), uneven road surfaces (23 per cent) and side winds (8 per cent).
Times, Sunday Times
The new system detects when a vehicle skids - indicating a slippery road surface - and logs the location of the incident.
Times, Sunday Times
There are plenty of airbags, and chassis electronics aid the driver on a hail-swept, slippery road.
Times, Sunday Times
Water will drain more quickly from a smooth road than a rough one, for example, which allows the camber angle to be smaller.
Times, Sunday Times
It has not been a smooth road back, even after the worst fears proved unfounded.
Times, Sunday Times
This strategy will not always ensure a smooth road but it can help provide some protection against bumps along the way.
Times, Sunday Times
On a smooth road, that's certainly the case.
Times, Sunday Times
No hills, but smooth road and mostly paved shoulder.
Houston Chronicle
Oo-er: 1,368ft back there; 1,893ft through here; a steep road; tight bends.
Times, Sunday Times
Its walls mark the steep road where horses used to clatter into the valley.
Times, Sunday Times
So we take our hire car up the winding, steep road to the castle on high.
Times, Sunday Times
Ours was the last house at the top of an incredibly steep road before you reached the moors.
Times, Sunday Times
The high elevation with its risk of altitude sickness, weather concerns, steep road grade, and overall inaccessibility make the volcano dangerous and summit trips difficult.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
They had now reached a stretch of straight road with what seemed to be a good-sized wood on one side.
UNTO THE GRAVE
You have probably seen this visual effect looking down a straight road or railway line.
Technology Basic Facts (1990)
Instead of trundling along a straight road, I like to kick off in different directions.
Times, Sunday Times (2008)
Eagles and vultures circle the long straight road.
Times, Sunday Times (2008)
Another truck was also overturned on the same stretch of road.
The Sun
A group of people pegged it down a 100-metre stretch of road.
The Sun
Motorists pay 5 on weekdays to drive on the 27-mile stretch of road.
Times, Sunday Times
The 50,000 drivers who use the four-mile stretch of road each day collectively waste half a million hours a year sitting in queues.
Times, Sunday Times
That leads to an uneasy stand-off on this stretch of road.
Times,Sunday Times
Now we are heading back down that treacherous road.
The Sun
Its driver had been struggling in treacherous road conditions.
The Sun
Highway bosses yesterday warned drivers they face treacherous road conditions for the rest of the winter - after councils admitted they had already used up half their annual salt stocks.
The Sun
Had there been an underpass to avoid crossing the treacherous road, he might still be alive.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
More than 23,000 homes were left without power yesterday as engineers battled snow and treacherous roads to reach them.
The Sun
I imagined it would dispatch a twisting road with elan and leave me marvelling at its ability.
Times, Sunday Times
And it's not as if it all becomes worthwhile on a twisting road: any bumps through a bend seem to upset its handling.
Times, Sunday Times
And no other car goes down a twisting road in quite the same way either.
Times, Sunday Times
It's a twisting road to longevity, but she's off to a good start.
Houston Chronicle
Along the twisting road are several local vendors of honey and mountain tea.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
After admiring the lighthouse, I drive along twisty roads to the Logan Botanic Garden and feel as if I have entered another world.
Times, Sunday Times (2010)
If you have got a full cup of coffee on the go, expect to be mopping it up on a twisty road.
The Sun (2016)
They are both great fun to drive, especially on twisty country roads although equally at home cruising on long motorway runs.
The Sun (2010)
Vehicles often break down in the cold, thin air, blocking the two-lane road and causing traffic jams that can last for days.
Times, Sunday Times
When he turns onto the two-lane road, without any slowdown or stop, now he’s got it up to about 120, going toward the freeway.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
Cycling two abreast on a two-lane road should be made illegal.
The Sun
It was a two-lane road.
Houston Chronicle
It runs roughly east, as a two-lane road, until it meets a major railroad right-of-way, at which point it turns south.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
At the end of an unpaved road outside town there’s a small municipal cemetery.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
The route, as it existed in 1936, was an unpaved road approximately 42 mi long.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
It can be reached by a short hike from an unpaved road.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
Follow the road for about 50 yards and then turn right into an unmarked, unpaved road.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
It depicts an unpaved road with a large pool of water in the middle of it at twilight.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
Progress, however, in the shape of a multimillion-pound plan to widen the road - an attempt to boost traffic, trade and tourism between the cities - has turned it into a nightmare.
Times, Sunday Times
In some places, homes could be removed to widen the road and improve traffic flow, he said.
Times, Sunday Times
In the 1970s there were plans to widen the road to accommodate expected increases in traffic flow but this did not take place.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
The next pass partially overlapped the first to widen the road.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
Present plans are to widen the road to a four-lane divided expressway.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
When they were on the winding road and driving back toward Fremont, Ginger said, `What did you see up there, Steve?
It would be a spectacular terminus at the end of a rocky and winding road.
Times, Sunday Times (2010)
Then the doctor took the driver's seat and they moved off along the white, winding road.
CHALLENGE FOR THE CHALET SCHOOL (2002)
Translations:
Chinese: 道路
Japanese: 道路
- land of plenty
- landowner
- land ownership
- landowning
- land parcel
- land reclamation
- land reform
- land registry
- land resources
- land safely
- landscape
- landscape a park
- landscape architect
- landscape architect
- landscape artist
- landscape contractor
- landscape design
- landscape designer
- landscape element
- landscape fabric
- landscape feature
- landscape garden
- landscape gardener
- landscape photograph
- landscape photographer