hard shoulder

British

noun

a surfaced verge running along the edge of a motorway for emergency stops

"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

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.

Instead of a continuous hard shoulder, there are refuges every mile.

From BBC • Feb. 18, 2026

They also use the hard shoulder as an extra lane of traffic to increase capacity, but critics claim that has led to road deaths.

From BBC • Feb. 18, 2026

Dynamic hard shoulder roads permit traffic on the hard shoulder at peak times, while all-lane-running schemes get rid of the hard shoulder altogether, replacing it permanently with a live lane.

From BBC • Feb. 6, 2026

"We were already parked in a really dangerous place as there was no hard shoulder."

From BBC • Dec. 23, 2025

Benz came tearing in; his interference crumpled; he felt a hard shoulder against his knees, and the next moment hit the ground with a terrible thud which knocked the wind completely out of him.

From Over the Line by Sherman, Harold Morrow

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023