pavement
[peyv-muh nt]
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- pound the pavement, Informal. to walk the streets in order to accomplish something: If you're going to find work you'd better start pounding the pavement.
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Origin of pavement
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for pavement
Contemporary Examples
Blood spatters on the pavement seem to confirm that he was moving toward Wilson when the instantly fatal shot was fired.
This year, however, Democratic dominance at pounding the pavement might finally be challenged.
Democrats have long dominated at pounding the pavement in the Hawkeye State.
“For some unknown reason, the vehicle traveled off the pavement at a gradual angle,” the troopers wrote.
Buzzfeed assures me that deadbeats camped out on the pavement in big cities are hipsters.
Historical Examples
The man was stretched on the pavement brutishly drunk and dead to the world.
Ballads of a BohemianRobert W. Service
His ardent young eyes worshiped her as he stood on the pavement.
KMary Roberts Rinehart
Thus it was possible to ring the doorbell from the pavement, and this the stranger did.
KMary Roberts Rinehart
He hesitated on the pavement, his eyes searching the shadowy balcony.
KMary Roberts Rinehart
There was no indication of the six miles of pavement which later were to be Fallon's pride.
DustMr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
pavement
- a hard-surfaced path for pedestrians alongside and a little higher than a roadUS and Canadian word: sidewalk
- a paved surface, esp one that is a thoroughfare
- the material used in paving
- civil engineering the hard layered structure that forms a road carriageway, airfield runway, vehicle park, or other paved areas
- geology a level area of exposed rock resembling a paved roadSee limestone pavement
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Word Origin
C13: from Latin pavīmentum a hard floor, from pavīre to beat hard
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 pavement
n.
mid-13c., from Old French pavement "roadway, pathway; paving stone" (12c.) and directly from Latin pavimentum "hard floor, level surface beaten firm," from pavire (see pave).
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
Idioms and Phrases with pavement
pavement
see pound the pavement.
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The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.