pave
verb (used with object)
to cover or lay (a road, walk, etc.) with concrete, stones, bricks, tiles, wood, or the like, so as to make a firm, level surface.
pave
1 American
[peyv]
/ peɪv /
verb (used with object)
-
paves,
present (3rd person singular)
-
paved,
past participle, past
-
paving
present participle
noun
idioms
pavé
2
American
[puh-vey, pav-ey, pa -vey]
/ pəˈveɪ, ˈpæv eɪ, paˈveɪ /
noun
-
pavés
plural
-
a pavement.
-
Jewelry. a setting of stones placed close together so as to show no metal between them.
adverb
adjective
pave
1
British
/ peɪv /
verb
-
to cover (a road, path, etc) with a firm surface suitable for travel, as with paving stones or concrete
-
to serve as the material for a pavement or other hard layer
bricks paved the causeway
-
(often foll by with) to cover with a hard layer (of)
shelves paved with marble
-
to prepare or make easier (esp in the phrase pave the way )
to pave the way for future development
pavé
2
British
/ ˈpæveɪ /
noun
-
a paved surface, esp an uneven one
-
a style of setting gems so closely that no metal shows
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
pavesimple
-
pavessimple
-
have pavedperfect
-
has pavedperfect
-
am pavingprogressive
-
are pavingprogressive
-
is pavingprogressive
-
have been pavingperfect progressive
-
has been pavingperfect progressive
Past
-
pavedsimple
-
had pavedperfect
-
was pavingprogressive
-
were pavingprogressive
-
had been pavingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of pave1
1275–1325; Middle English paven < Middle French paver < Vulgar Latin *pavare, for Latin pavīre to beat, ram, tread down
Origin of pavé2
1755–65; < French, past participle of paver. See pave
Explanation
To pave is to coat or cover with a very hard material, like concrete, asphalt, or stone. It's easier to shovel snow from your driveway after you pave it. When road crews pour hot asphalt on the street, they pave it, and when the city creates new sidewalks in your town, they may pave them with bricks or concrete. The colloquial expression "to pave the way for" means to set up a situation that allows something to happen more easily — for example, if your parents read you books from the time you were very small, they helped pave the way for you to love reading.
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:
That doesn’t mean you can’t pave the way in an impartial manner by asking the attorney to address the issues themselves.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 20, 2026
Planners had hoped the mission would pave the way for giving other satellites a second life.
From Barron's ● Aug. 19, 2026
The offering has drawn huge demand and could pave the way for more IPOs.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026
That measurement helped pave the way for future research into matter-antimatter asymmetries in the neutrino sector.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 14, 2026
Something else happens, too, perhaps less expected; the social information seems to pave over the value of the driving information.
From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel
In person, it's dazzling, with a huge, oval-cut diamond set on a 18-karat white and rose gold diamond pavé band.
From BBC ● Mar. 6, 2025
You could get a pavé setting or not.
From The Verge ● Jul. 16, 2022
Both the antique and the design it inspired have been reborn as a faceted snow quartz teardrop pendant bordered in pavé diamonds that hangs from a 30-inch yellow-gold chain.
From New York Times ● Mar. 25, 2022
A 15-Hour Potato may be better known by its French moniker, the pavé.
From Salon ● Nov. 28, 2021
The footway in many of the streets is, like that of Toronto, of planks, which for my own part I like better than the burning brick or stone pavé.
From Sketches in Canada, and rambles among the red men by Mrs. (Anna) Jameson
He believes the artist is referencing the student uprising in Paris in 1968, which had the slogan "sous les pavés, la plage!"
From BBC ● Aug. 9, 2021
Things in “L’Écume” that seem exceptional to us, or to a bunch of idealistic students rallying, in 1968, behind the Vianesque slogan “Sous les pavés, la plage!”
From The New Yorker ● Aug. 12, 2014
Item, 4 knights, armed, keeping the sepulchre, with their weapons in their hands; that is to say, 2 axes and 2 spears, with 2 pavés.
From Notes and Queries, Number 25, April 20, 1850 by Various
The old pavés are beginning to give way, however, and we actually got a bit of terre within six posts of Paris.
From Recollections of Europe by James Fenimore Cooper
I began to think, regretfully of certain rugged continental pavés execrated in days gone by; they, at least, had a firm bottom, more or less remote.
From Border and Bastille by George A. (George Alfred) Lawrence
Namibia has granted environmental clearance for an offshore phosphate mining project that paves the way for the world's first commercial seabed-dredging operation for the mineral, despite opposition from green groups and the fishing industry.
From Barron's ● Aug. 25, 2026
Evading plot holes, “It Ends” paves over the obvious biological needs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026
"By enabling robust nonreciprocal quantum synchronization, our research paves the way for realizing more reliable quantum processors and protected quantum resources," comments Lai.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 12, 2026
While much of this field is still theoretical, Google says Willow incorporates key "breakthroughs" and "paves the way to a useful, large-scale quantum computer".
From BBC ● May 28, 2026
The New Member for May, edited by William Dowdell, contains but one credential, yet doubtless paves the way for a resumption of the enterprise so ably conducted by Miss Hoffman last year.
From Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 by H. P. (Howard Phillips) Lovecraft
"This is an opportunity, it's not a final decision," Prime Minister Kristrun Frostadottir told AFP, arguing that the referendum paved the way for a "risk-reducing 'Yes'".
From Barron's ● Aug. 26, 2026
That delivery model—which relies on contracting smaller firms that hire, train and manage fleets of workers—has also paved a path to business ownership for operators, Amazon noted.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 11, 2026
This event wiped out much of the life on the planet and paved the way for the diversification of new groups of animals.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 10, 2026
In middle school, I took my first art class with Mr. Aguilera, who taught me the fundamentals and paved the way for me to study art at an elevated level in high school.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026
They walked along the paved road together, and after a time Salvador pointed out the Todos Santos Islands offshore.
From "Lupita Mañana" by Patricia Beatty
At an impromptu press conference last week, US President Donald Trump waxed lyrical about his helipad, his ballroom and his granite paving stones.
From Barron's ● Aug. 25, 2026
It was time to offer thanks to the likes of Willie West at Crenshaw and Reggie Morris of Manual Arts for paving the way for the next generation of Black head coaches.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 23, 2026
Barrick Mining has settled a long-standing dispute with rival Newmont over their Nevada operations, securing a $1.95 billion cash payout and paving the way for Barrick to publicly list its North American gold assets.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026
The president has weighed in on paving stones, marble, flagpoles and other aesthetic details around the White House as he reshapes the presidential grounds.
From Salon ● Aug. 9, 2026
He lifted the boat as if it were a wicker basket of fruit and pushed it out through the glassless window, onto the paving outside.
From "Impossible Creatures" by Katherine Rundell
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.
