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avenue

[av-uh-nyoo, -noo]
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SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR avenue ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

a wide street or main thoroughfare.
a means of access or attainment: avenues of escape; avenues to greater power.
a way or means of entering into or approaching a place: the various avenues to India.
Chiefly British.
  1. a wide, usually tree-lined road, path, driveway, etc., through grounds to a country house or monumental building.
  2. a suburban, usually tree-lined residential street.

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RELATED WORDS

entrance, boulevard, thoroughfare, route, promenade, channel, road, outlet, pathway, drive, alley, passage, access, course, exit, way, entry, approach, parkway

Origin of avenue

1590–1600; < French, literally, approach, noun use of feminine past participle of avenir < Latin advenīre to come to. See a-5, venue

Synonyms for avenue

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR avenue ON THESAURUS.COM
1. See street.
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for avenue

Contemporary Examples of avenue

Historical Examples of avenue

  • I cannot decide which way to turn to reach Fifth Avenue again.

  • Quite suddenly Sidney knew who the girl at 213 —— Avenue was.

    K

    Mary Roberts Rinehart

  • Three months before, the Avenue would have meant nothing to Sidney.

    K

    Mary Roberts Rinehart

  • On her first night on duty, a girl had been brought in from the Avenue.

    K

    Mary Roberts Rinehart

  • Ask your future husband if he knows a girl at 213 —— Avenue.

    K

    Mary Roberts Rinehart

British Dictionary definitions for avenue

avenue

noun

  1. a broad street, often lined with trees
  2. (capital as part of a street name)a road, esp in a built-up areaShaftesbury Avenue
a main approach road, as to a country house
a way bordered by two rows of treesan avenue of oaks
a line of approachexplore every avenue

Word Origin for avenue

C17: from French, from avenir to come to, from Latin advenīre, from venīre to come
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for avenue
n.

c.1600, "a way of approach" (originally a military word), from Middle French avenue "way of access," from Old French avenue "act of approaching, arrival," noun use of fem. of avenu, past participle of avenir "to come to, arrive," from Latin advenire "to come to," from ad- "to" (see ad-) + venire "to come" (see venue). Meaning shifted to "a way of approach to a country-house," usually bordered by trees, hence, "a broad, tree-lined roadway" (1650s), then to "wide, main street" (by 1846, especially in U.S.).

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper