rond-pointn.
/ˈrɒ̃pwã/, U.S. /ˈrɑnˌpwɑnt/ 1. In a town or city: a circus or roundabout at which roads converge. Cf. roundabout n. 8.Chiefly in French contexts, but also adopted elsewhere in Town Planning.
ΘΚΠ
society > travel > means of travel > route or way > way, path, or track > junction of roads, paths, or tracks > [noun] > types of road junction > roundabout
circus1898
rond-point1903
rotonda1908
traffic circle1914
roundabout1926
rotary1940
gyratory1983
modern roundabout1987
?1830 Galignani's New Paris Guide (ed. 17) xi. 285 After the accession of Charles X, it was resolved that the statue of Louis XV should be erected in the centre of the rond point of the Champs-Elysées.
1862 W. M. Thackeray Adventures of Philip II. ii. 60 A short time after passing the Rond Point in the Elysian fields,..Mr. Philip would see a little person.
1903 A. H. Beavan Tube, Train, Tram, & Car x. 120 Sloane Street, where anyone approaching town by way of Kensington, meets the first of the numerous metropolitan ‘rond-points’.
1948 Archit. Rev. 103 158/2 Foremost in his mind he must have had such questions as where to place his rond-points and their radiating streets, and how to co-ordinate and integrate the various units of the plan.
1998 F. R. Kowsky Country, Park & City vi. 151 In the middle of a grassy rond-point, Vaux hoped to erect a 40-foot-tall stone tower.
2. In a garden, wood, etc.: a circular space or centre from which paths radiate.
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > farming > gardening > garden > division or part of garden > [noun] > walk > centre from which paths radiate
rond-point1884
society > travel > means of travel > route or way > way, path, or track > path or place for walking > [noun] > foot(-)path > in a garden or pleasure-ground > place where paths meet
rond-point1884
1837 T. Carlyle French Revol. II. iii. iv. 170 The Queen was not far; on a ‘round knoll, rond point, the highest of the Garden of Saint-Cloud’.
1884 H. James in Atlantic Monthly May 631/2 A jardin français..with little blue-green perspectives and alleys and rond-points.
1910 L. Weaver Small Country Houses of To-day I. xxxix. 196 A path, 6ft. in width, leads from it between herbaceous borders 10ft. wide to a rond-point with a segmental seat of masonry and a sundial.
1967 C. Hussey Eng. Gardens & Landscapes 1700–1750 v. 41 The enclosing shrubberies were threaded by walks, straight for the most part but irregularly aligned, connecting sundry rond-points and mounds, to debouch at unexpected angles into the glade.
1990 R. Williams Garden Planner (1998) 64 You can make the last area worth visiting with a well-placed focal point, a seat, a rond-point..or even a secret garden.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, November 2010; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.?1830