beltway
Americannoun
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Also called belt highway. a highway around the perimeter of an urban area.
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the Beltway, the Washington, D.C., area within the highway that encircles it.
noun
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the usual US name for a ring road
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(usually with capital)
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the people and institutions located in the area bounded by the Washington Beltway, taken to be politically and socially out of touch with the rest of America and much given to political intrigue
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( as modifier )
Beltway Cassandras
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Etymology
Origin of beltway
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.
In Virginia, they used to hear the dull roar of cars on the beltway in the distance.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 13, 2026
Swapping a beltway bon vivant for the so-called Prince of Darkness is, however, a risk.
From BBC ● Feb. 8, 2025
So now you’re going to have that increased traffic around the beltway, as well as increased traffic in both the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel and the Fort McHenry Tunnel.
From New York Times ● Apr. 1, 2024
The destruction of the bridge, a part of Baltimore’s Interstate 695 beltway, could seemingly doom Marylanders to hellish gridlock for the foreseeable future.
From Slate ● Mar. 26, 2024
We pulled onto 1-465, the beltway that circumscribes Indianapolis.
From "Turtles All the Way Down" by John Green
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
