asphalt
Americannoun
-
any of various dark-colored, solid, bituminous substances, native in various areas of the earth and composed mainly of hydrocarbon mixtures.
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a similar substance that is the by-product of petroleum-cracking operations.
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a mixture of such substances with gravel, crushed rock, or the like, used for paving.
verb (used with object)
-
asphalts,
present (3rd person singular)
-
asphalted,
past participle, past
-
asphalting
present participle
adjective
noun
-
any of several black semisolid substances composed of bitumen and inert mineral matter. They occur naturally in parts of America and as a residue from petroleum distillation: used as a waterproofing material and in paints, dielectrics, and fungicides
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a mixture of this substance with gravel, used in road-surfacing and roofing materials
-
(modifier) containing or surfaced with asphalt
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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asphaltsimple
-
asphaltssimple
-
have asphaltedperfect
-
has asphaltedperfect
-
am asphaltingprogressive
-
are asphaltingprogressive
-
is asphaltingprogressive
-
have been asphaltingperfect progressive
-
has been asphaltingperfect progressive
Past
-
asphaltedsimple
-
had asphaltedperfect
-
was asphaltingprogressive
-
were asphaltingprogressive
-
had been asphaltingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of asphalt
1275–1325; earlier asphaltos, -um < Latin < Greek ásphaltos, -on, akin to asphalízein to make firm, to secure; replacing Middle English aspaltoun ≪ Greek ásphalton
Explanation
Asphalt is the black, tarry material that's often used to pave roads or fill in potholes. Your neighbor might decide to coat his driveway in asphalt. Asphalt is a popular substance for paving roads, parking lots, and even airport runways, because it's sturdy and easy to repair. When old asphalt roads are torn up or repaved, the asphalt can be reused in new highway or road projects. Asphalt is usually manufactured from oil, or petroleum, but there are more ecologically friendly ways to make it, including using molasses, rice, or potato starch.
Vocabulary lists containing asphalt
Black and Gray
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List 3
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The Thing About Jellyfish
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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.
See Examples For:
Images shared by the local transportation authority showed chunks of asphalt, reminiscent of earthquake damage, washed over by large waves.
From Barron's ● Sep. 27, 2026
Days later, he was flying across the asphalt and cobblestones to a gold medal.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 26, 2026
The researchers identified a large thermal gradient, with temperatures reaching approximately 350 degrees Celsius beside the magma intrusion and falling to about 72 degrees Celsius at an ancient seafloor asphalt spill roughly 300 meters higher.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 26, 2026
The grass, native plants and trees are intended to provide shade and reduce heat on a schoolyard that was previously made up largely of asphalt.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 13, 2026
The chariot wheels bounced over the uneven asphalt, each time hanging in the air a little longer.
From "City of the Plague God" by Sarwat Chadda
He also is developing what he says should be more-affordable pothole-resistant pavements, using non-petroleum "bio asphalts" derived from waste materials such as corn stalks and switch grass.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 30, 2010
Oil asphalts are used for dust layers, for binders for macadam roads, for asphalt cements for sheet pavement surfaces, and for fillers for block pavements and expansion joints.
From American Rural Highways by T. R. (Thomas Radford) Agg
Mixtures.—Water gas tars and asphalts are sometimes mixed to produce road materials, and likewise native asphalts and residues obtained from petroleum are sometimes mixed to produce asphalt cements for paving mixtures.
From American Rural Highways by T. R. (Thomas Radford) Agg
The asphalts, then, have a common history in this, that they are produced by the evaporation and oxidation of petroleum.
From Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 by Various
Fillers.—Fillers are solid asphalts or tars that are used for filling expansion joints in rigid pavements and for filling the spaces between the blocks in brick, wood block and stone block pavements.
From American Rural Highways by T. R. (Thomas Radford) Agg
"For some reason," a deputy writes, "Brunner believes the asphalted driveway … is now his property."
From Salon ● Nov. 17, 2022
The next day, traffic flowed over the newly asphalted road, and life in the capital had returned to near normal.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 16, 2022
The asphalted road over the pass, called CG-2, connects El Pas de la Casa with the rest of the country.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 11, 2021
Starting with Chinatown, earthen basements were concreted, concrete ones flooded with carbolic acid, walls washed with lye, streets asphalted, cesspools filled and decrepit dwellings demolished.
From Nature ● Apr. 23, 2019
We put up iron railings to keep the explorers to our own sordidly asphalted paths.
From Wings and the Child or, the Building of Magic Cities by E. (Edith) Nesbit
The BR-163 connects the agricultural powerhouse state of Mato Grosso to the Amazon ports Miritituba and Santarém, and in November the army finished asphalting its last unpaved section.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 10, 2020
At the Arena Amazonia, where England will play their opening game against Italy on Saturday, workers are still asphalting the ground outside the stadium, fitting doors and fixing power cables in the changing room.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 11, 2014
"We are happy and thankful to the foreigners for asphalting the 100km Ghorband-Kabul road," says Haji Ahmad, a truck driver from Shinwari.
From BBC ● Aug. 11, 2012
I had also warned him to look out for, and he succeeded in finding, beds of bitumen permeated with petroleum: this material will prove valuable for fuel and for asphalting, if not for sale.
From To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II A Personal Narrative by Sir Richard Francis Burton
Even during the war, Eritrea developed its transportation infrastructure, asphalting new roads, improving its ports, and repairing war damaged roads and bridges.
From The 2003 CIA World Factbook by United States. Central Intelligence Agency
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.
