pavement
[peyv-muh nt]
Show More
- 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.
Show More
Origin of pavement
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
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
Show More
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 pound the pavement
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).
Show More
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
Idioms and Phrases with pound the pavement
pound the pavement
Walk the streets, especially in search of employment. For example, He was fired last year and he's been pounding the pavement ever since. A similar usage is pound a beat, meaning “to walk a particular route over and over”; it is nearly always applied to a police officer. [Early 1900s]
Show More
pavement
see pound the pavement.
Show More
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.