thoroughfare
Americannoun
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a road, street, or the like, that leads at each end into another street.
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a major road or highway.
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a passage or way through.
no thoroughfare.
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a strait, river, or the like, affording passage.
noun
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a road from one place to another, esp a main road
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way through or access
no thoroughfare
Etymology
Origin of thoroughfare
First recorded in 1350–1400, thoroughfare is from the Middle English word thurghfare. See thorough, fare
Explanation
A thoroughfare is a public road that can get you from one place to another. When it snows, plows try to remove the snow from the thoroughfares so the school buses can take everyone to school. You’re welcome. This somewhat old-fashioned word has a very common meaning — a public road that goes from point A to point B. The word is made up of thorough, Old English for basically, “through” and fare for “journey.” (Fare also now means a payment, but not in thoroughfare.) If a road is private, like a driveway, it’s not a thoroughfare. This word often appears in the phrase "no thoroughfare," which means there isn't a public route available.
Vocabulary lists containing thoroughfare
Fahrenheit 451
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The Call of the Wild
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A Thousand Splendid Suns
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Other Black settlers followed, forming an insular community that coexisted with Thoroughfare, another Reconstruction-era enclave now surrounded by new development.
From Washington Post • Jul. 18, 2021
Farewell to Our Thoroughfare | Jan. 11: Drivers and bicyclists gathered for one last ride on Seattle’s beloved Alaskan Way Viaduct on Jan. 11.
From Seattle Times • Dec. 29, 2019
The 10-mill tax is dedicated to road work and pays for what the city calls its Major Thoroughfare Program.
From Washington Times • Apr. 24, 2016
On the evening of the summer solstice of 2013, I moored my sailboat in the Fox Islands Thoroughfare, one of the most beautiful places I know.
From The New Yorker • Dec. 5, 2014
A five-mile sail, and they were threading their way through narrow, winding Fox Island Thoroughfare, to the wharf at North Haven.
From Jim Spurling, Fisherman or Making Good by Tolman, Albert Walter
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
