right of way 
noun [mass noun]
1The legal right, established by usage or grant, to pass along a specific route through grounds or property belonging to another: they found their right of way barred by locked gates...
- The Council agreed informally to grant him a right of way along the further stretch of road and to permit him to gain access to his property by a new gate.
- Eventually the inspector concluded that there was no right of way of any description along bridleway 8 save for a short stretch along a highway called Sawley Lodge Drive.
- In particular there was evidence from Mr Fattorini's head gamekeeper and butler to the effect that there had been no exercise of any right of way by the public along Sawley Lodge Drive.
1.1 [count noun] A path or thoroughfare subject to right of way: his new permissive path is not a public right of way...
- Public rights of way are paths and tracks through countryside and sometimes residential areas where people can walk, cycle and ride horses.
- But club president John Hodgson today said the club would be re-opening the path after receiving a letter from Bradford Council stating the path was a public right of way.
- The committee was advised by the authority's solicitor that to qualify as a public right of way a path must have been used for more than 20 years ‘without force, without secrecy and without permission’.
2The legal right of a pedestrian, vehicle, or ship to proceed with precedence over others in a particular situation or place: he waves on other drivers, even when it’s not their right of way [as modifier]: an infraction of the basic right-of-way rule on the first leg of the race...
- But that's totally different to someone who has a good reason to use the pavement, and does so at a slow pace, often stopping to give pedestrians their legal right of way.
- Would they confirm that pedestrians already on a crossing has right of way over vehicles?
- The regulations make it quite clear that a pedestrian on the crossing has right of way over a vehicle.
3North American The right to build and operate a railway line, road, or utility on land belonging to another.This network began about 12 years ago, when we laid fiber from midwestern Pennsylvania to New Jersey using GPU's right of way as an electric utility....
- He said all that remained was for some problems with Network Rail about right of way and access to land to be ironed out.
- In 1927 approval was given for a new right of way through Midland to connect with the CPR at Port Mc.Nicoll.
3.1 [count noun] The land on which a railway line, road, or utility is built: the government has continued to evade the upgrading of rights of way, tracks, and signalling...
- In many cases, lack of available space, such as close proximity to utilities and traffic when trenching in a right of way, might prevent use of this approach, notes Newquist.
- Ironically, as a private attorney, Riordan bought the Southern Pacific rights of way for the Blue Line on behalf of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission.
- To the south of the parallel sets of tracks will be the G.T.R. Don freight yard, from which the additional width for the right of way will betaken.
- European economic area
- European Economic Community
- European Free Trade Association
- European green crab
- European Investment Bank
- Europeanise
- Europeanism
- Europeanist
- Europeanity
- Europeanization
- Europeanize
- European kitchen
- Europeanly
- European Monetary System
- European Monetary Union
- Europeanness
- European Parliament
- European plan
- European pond terrapin
- European Recovery Program
- European Space Agency
- European-style
- European Union
- European-wide
- Europe, Council of