railroad

[reyl-rohd]

noun

1. a permanent road laid with rails, rail, commonly in one or more pairs of continuous lines forming a track or tracks, on which locomotives and cars are run for the transportation of passengers, freight, and mail.

2. an entire system of such roads together with its rolling stock, buildings, etc.; the entire railway plant, including fixed and movable property.

3. the company of persons owning or operating such a plant.

4. Bowling.,  a split.

5. railroads, stocks or bonds of railroad companies.

verb (used with object)

1. to transport by means of a railroad.

2. to supply with railroads.

3. Informal.,  to push (a law or bill) hastily through a legislature so that there is not time enough for objections to be considered.

4. Informal.,  to convict (a person) in a hasty manner by means of false charges or insufficient evidence.

   The prisoner insisted he had been railroaded.

verb (used without object)

1. to work on a railroad.

railroad

/ ˈreɪlˌrəʊd /

noun

1. the usual US word for railway

verb

1. informal,  (tr) to force (a person) into (an action) with haste or by unfair means

Other Word Forms

• nonrailroad adjective
• prerailroad adjective
• prorailroad adjective
• unrailroaded adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of railroad¹

1750–60; 1875–85 railroad for def. 9; rail ¹ + road

Example Sentences

Though locally celebrated for its proximity to a scenic railroad and the Hershey chocolate empire, the town’s identity was redefined in March 1979.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

“Ease” survived, but Abbe soon sold the work to railroad baron Collis Potter Huntington to help relieve his financial difficulties.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

An American railroad worker lives a life of loneliness until he marries and has a daughter, but tragedy soon strikes on one of his long trips away from home.

Read more on BBC

The OT’s Jewish victims, like their non-Jewish counterparts, were forced to work on everything from underground armaments factories to V-2 rockets and even a railroad above the Arctic Circle in Norway.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

The Midwest city, as many know, is Disney’s birthplace, but in 1948 he and Kimball embarked on a vacation to that city’s railroad fair.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• rail line www.thesaurus.com
• railway 
• subway