corridor

American  

[kawr-i-der, -dawr, kor-] / ˈkɔr ɪ dər, -ˌdɔr, ˈkɒr- /

noun

• corridors
  plural

1. a gallery or passage connecting parts of a building; hallway.

2. a passage into which several rooms or apartments open.

3. a passageway in a passenger ship or railroad car permitting access to separate cabins or compartments.

4. a narrow tract of land forming a passageway, as one connecting two major cities or one belonging to an inland country and affording an outlet to the sea.

   the Polish Corridor.

5. a usually densely populated region characterized by one or more well-traveled routes used by railroad, airline, or other carriers.

   The Northeast corridor extends from Washington, D.C., to Boston.

6. Also called air corridor.  Aeronautics. a restricted path along which an aircraft must travel to avoid hostile action, other air traffic, etc.

7. Aerospace. a carefully calculated path through the atmosphere along which a space vehicle must travel after launch or during reentry in order to attain a desired orbit, to avoid severe acceleration and deceleration, or to minimize aerodynamic heating.

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corridor British  

/ ˈkɒrɪˌdɔː /

noun

1. a hallway or passage connecting parts of a building

2. a strip of land or airspace along the route of a road or river

   the M1 corridor

3. a strip of land or airspace that affords access, either from a landlocked country to the sea (such as the Polish corridor , 1919-39, which divided Germany) or from a state to an exclave (such as the Berlin corridor , 1945–90, which passed through the former East Germany)

4. a passageway connecting the compartments of a railway coach

5. the higher echelons of government, the Civil Service, etc, considered as the location of power and influence

6. a flight path that affords safe access for intruding aircraft

7. the path that a spacecraft must follow when re-entering the atmosphere, above which lift is insufficient and below which heating effects are excessive

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• precorridor
  noun
• corridored
  adjective
• uncorridored
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• corridors
  plural

Etymology

Origin of corridor

First recorded in 1585–95; from Middle French, from Upper Italian corridore (Tuscan corridoio ), equivalent to corr(ere) “to run,” (from Latin currere ) + -idore, from Latin -i- + -tōrium noun suffix; see -i-, -tory ²

Explanation

A long hallway, especially one that has rooms opening up into it, is called a corridor. Late at night, hotel corridors all look alike. Be sure you try to open the right door with your key card. A corridor is also a tract of land that connects two places or runs along the side of a road. In your town, the business corridor might be a fairly small strip of land with just a couple of restaurants and a few stores. The Northeast Corridor is the built-up area that links eastern cities in a chain that stretches from Boston to Washington, D.C.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

corridor corridors

Crenshaw Boulevard is a main thoroughfare that runs through the Black cultural corridor in South L.A., and Destination Crenshaw seeks to celebrate the legacy and contributions of L.A.’s Black community.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026

Although more than 200 Palestinian students have been successfully enrolled in Italian colleges through a government university corridor project started in 2025, others have been left behind.

From Barron's ● Aug. 10, 2026

With almost no vessels currently moving on Ukraine's Black Sea shipping corridor, traders are already counting the cost of this summer's closure.

From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2026

The highest-risk areas include the Interstate 5 corridor, the interior mountains and valleys of San Luis Obispo County, the Cuyama Valley and the interior mountains of Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, the forecast states.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 3, 2026

We rounded a corner, and the corridor opened up into a gigantic circular room the size of the auditorium at the Academy.

From "Glitch" by Laura Martin

But that did not happen in public - or, it has become apparent, privately in Fifa's corridors of power.

From BBC ● Aug. 1, 2026

The strike demonstrates the vulnerability of regional energy assets beyond the Persian Gulf and Red Sea theaters, raising the prospect that corridors seen as safe alternatives to the region’s chokepoints could themselves become targets.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026

Common to much of the user-generated content are eerie images and haunting stories of mysterious, yellow wallpapered corridors and empty office-like spaces that exist outside of, or beyond, reality itself.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 26, 2026

New concourses, expanded corridors and improved passenger facilities have reshaped the transit hub, which serves hundreds of thousands of commuters and travelers each day and remains the busiest rail station in the United States.

From Salon ● Jul. 25, 2026

The cloisters were once more free of strangers and the corridors cleared of beds and pallets.

From "The Door in the Wall" by Marguerite de Angeli

Related Words

• aisle
• foyer
• hall
• lobby
• passage
• passageway