route
Americannoun
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a course, way, or road for passage or travel.
What's the shortest route to Boston?
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a customary or regular line of passage or travel.
There's a ship from our company on the North Atlantic route.
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a specific itinerary, round, or number of stops regularly visited by a person in the performance of their work or duty.
a newspaper route;
a mail carrier's route.
verb (used with object)
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to set the path of.
to route a tour.
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to send or forward by a particular course or road.
It's the post office's job to route mail to its proper destination.
idioms
noun
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the choice of roads taken to get to a place
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a regular journey travelled
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(capital) a main road between cities
Route 66
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mountaineering the direction or course taken by a climb
-
med the means by which a drug or agent is administered or enters the body, such as by mouth or by injection
oral route
verb
Usage
When forming the present participle or verbal noun from the verb to route it is preferable to retain the e in order to distinguish the word from routing , the present participle or verbal noun from rout 1 , to defeat or rout 2 , to dig, rummage: the routeing of buses from the city centre to the suburbs . The spelling routing in this sense is, however, sometimes encountered, esp in American English
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Conjugated Forms
Present
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has routedperfect 3rd person singular
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have routedperfect
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is routingprogressive 3rd person singular
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have been routingperfect progressive
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has been routingperfect progressive 3rd person singular
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am routingprogressive 1st person singular
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are routingprogressive
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routessingular 3rd person
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routingparticiple
Past
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had routedperfect
-
had been routingperfect progressive
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routedparticiple
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was routingprogressive singular
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were routingprogressive plural
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routedsimple
Future
Etymology
Origin of route
First recorded in 1175–1225; Middle English: “way, course,” from Old French, from Latin rupta (via) “broken (road),” feminine past participle of rumpere “to break”; cf. rout 1
Explanation
A route is a way for travel or movement, the path from point A to point B. A route can also be the method used for achieving a particular result, like going to school and working hard is your route to success. Route comes from an Old French word, rute, “road,” “way,” or “path” and the Latin rupta, “broken way” or “beaten way.” A route can be a highway, like Route 66, or all the places you pass through on the way somewhere, like using a map to find the shortest route. As a verb, route means "to send people or things on a particular course," like detour signs that route you through unfamiliar streets or a package that is routed through Cleveland on its way to you.
Vocabulary lists containing route
The Best Starting Words for Wordle
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Make a Break for It: Rupt
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American Football, 1st Quarter
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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.
The fact the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial oil shipping route, remains effectively closed, and the path to AI profitably remains similarly hard to traverse, seem like subjects for another day.
From Barron's • Jun. 9, 2026
The route would pass through Libya, a country with a "huge vacuum of government", according to Anthony Dunkerley, a UN adviser who has investigated human trafficking there.
From BBC • Jun. 9, 2026
That route has fewer variables compared with routes that have more pickups and deliveries.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 8, 2026
The animals learned which route would lead to a reward and gradually developed a reliable strategy for reaching it.
From Science Daily • Jun. 8, 2026
I began to clamber up, plotting the best route as I went.
From "Klawde: Evil Alien Warlord Cat" by Johnny Marciano and Emily Chenoweth
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.
