street name

[ street neym ]

noun

1. a familiar or slang name of a narcotic drug:

   A street name for phencyclidine is “angel dust.”

2. Stock Exchange. an arrangement in which a broker holds securities in their own name instead of in the name of the customer, especially for convenience in executing transfers and in pledging for borrowing in margin accounts:

   Stocks held in street name are insured up to $500,000 by the federal government against fraud or financial failure of the brokerage company.

Word History and Origins

Origin of street name¹

First recorded in 1830–40 for the stock exchange sense, and in 1965–70 for the narcotic drug sense

Example Sentences

I Am Legend, the 1954 post-apocalyptic classic by Richard Matheson, is set in a Los Angeles that is recognizable by its geography and street names, but a pandemic has mutated its people—with the exception of one man—into shadow-dwelling vampires.

From MIT Technology Review

The buildings are densely and turbulently arranged in a manner that defies traditional identification systems like street names and numbers.

From MIT Technology Review

As with a postal address, you can think of him assigning each point on the curve a state, a city, a street name and a street number.

From Quanta Magazine

In New York, the only rule is that a person must be deceased to be honored with a street name.

From The Daily Beast

His experiments most famously introduced the empathogenic drug MDMA into the popular consciousness—under its street name, Ecstasy.

From The Daily Beast

But by now, everyone should be able to accept that he could hardly get a street-name change through this Congress.

From The Daily Beast

Although we shall forestall ourselves a little, we may here notice one more alteration in a street-name near Osgoode Hall.

From Project Gutenberg

As a street name it reached from the angle of Balliol to Smith Gate.

From Project Gutenberg

The street name was also set into the sidewalk under foot, in different colors—two names on each corner.

From Project Gutenberg

The printed inscription on it read: "Pension Norte Americana" giving street name and number.

From Project Gutenberg