railroad
Americannoun
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a permanent road laid with rails, commonly in one or more pairs of continuous lines forming a track or tracks, on which locomotives and cars are run for the transportation of passengers, freight, and mail.
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an entire system of such roads together with its rolling stock, buildings, etc.; the entire railway plant, including fixed and movable property.
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the company of persons owning or operating such a plant.
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Bowling. a split.
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railroads, stocks or bonds of railroad companies.
verb (used with object)
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to transport by means of a railroad.
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to supply with railroads.
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Informal. to push (a law or bill) hastily through a legislature so that there is not time enough for objections to be considered.
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Informal. to convict (a person) in a hasty manner by means of false charges or insufficient evidence.
The prisoner insisted he had been railroaded.
verb (used without object)
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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railroadsimple
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railroadssimple
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have railroadedperfect
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has railroadedperfect
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am railroadingprogressive
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are railroadingprogressive
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is railroadingprogressive
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have been railroadingperfect progressive
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has been railroadingperfect progressive
Past
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railroadedsimple
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had railroadedperfect
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was railroadingprogressive
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were railroadingprogressive
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had been railroadingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of railroad
1750–60; 1875–85 railroad for def. 9; rail 1 + road
Explanation
The system of tracks that trains run on can be called a railroad. A railroad is made up of the actual tracks, crossings, and stations, as well as the people who keep the trains running and scream, "All aboard!" If you prefer traveling by railroad, you like to ride trains, whether to the next town over or all the way across the country. Many railroad tracks in the US are used for freight trains that deliver goods around the country. When railroad is a verb, it can mean "move by train," but it's more likely to mean "force or coerce someone to do something," like when you railroad your brother into taking out the trash for you.
Vocabulary lists containing railroad
The Industrial Revolution - Introductory
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The Industrial Revolution - Middle School and High School
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History of India - Introductory
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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:
“We are more confident than ever that creating America’s first transcontinental railroad is good for America,” Vena said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026
For Union Pacific, it’s also become a builder of goodwill for its proposed multibillion merger with East Coast-based railroad Norfolk Southern.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026
Walking along the railroad tracks, she watched Simon Rodia build the Watts Towers’ 17 spires from rebar, shells, tiles, mirrors, soda bottles and cement.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 15, 2026
The Los Angeles-based corporation is also seeking to build a new pipeline along a railroad right-of-way to transport water to the south.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 10, 2026
And at twenty minutes after six in the morning, I wander past the railroad station on my way home from work.
From "The Light in Hidden Places" by Sharon Cameron
Under the agreement, Canadian National would get track rights in Illinois and Missouri and acquire interests in two terminal railroads.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
In the 1880s, quarterly reporting by railroads and other transportation companies were common.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2026
“Just as railroads, electric grids, and the Internet reshaped prior economic eras, we believe SpaceX is building the foundational platform for the next generation of industrial capacity,” he wrote.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 7, 2026
Spending targets range from cybersecurity and industrial capacity to railroads, bridges and ports needed for military logistics.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 4, 2026
“They worshiped the railroads here, only a blink of an eye ago. And now the iron gods are as forgotten as the emerald hunters...”
From "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman
I looked into those charges and concluded that they are unsupported, that Pangram isn’t reliable enough to serve as the basis for such accusations, and that there is a strong possibility Mia Ballard was railroaded.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 3, 2026
Like other actors including Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino, Julia Ormond, briefly a major star in the 1990s, has alleged in a lawsuit that Weinstein railroaded her career.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 25, 2024
But a group of faculty members rallied to support her, arguing that she was being railroaded for a moment of poorly worded remarks about antisemitism.
From New York Times ● Dec. 10, 2023
"But when we'd done our exams, it was like, 'Wait, I need to get my A levels'. I felt I had to force the issue, so I essentially railroaded him into it."
From BBC ● Jun. 27, 2023
If I had been railroaded, the authorities would have known how I’d gotten it.
From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela
But wage-earners—in textile manufacturing and railroading, to pick two examples—gained by the steady appreciation in the purchasing power of their hard-earned money.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 29, 2026
Unlike Derry’s pubs, it welcomed everybody and also secretly provided a safe refuge for Hank as he hid from the cops intent on railroading him.
From Salon ● Dec. 8, 2025
“When the Mexican Revolution was going on, you had a lot of Mexican immigrants coming into these railroading hubs and centers like the Inland Empire, like San Bernardino,” Ocegueda said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2025
Freight railroading has survived for nearly two centuries through constant reinvention.
From New York Times ● Sep. 19, 2022
They launched into a long discussion of their memories, both of railroading and of the Sierras.
From "Dragonwings" by Laurence Yep
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.
