road race

American

[rohd reys] / ˈroʊd ˌreɪs /

noun

a race that is performed on paved roads.

State Street will be closed from noon to 5 p.m. for the running of the Governor’s Cup road race.
Last year’s champion driver appears to have lost this year’s Bordeaux-Paris road race.

Etymology

Origin of road race

First recorded in 1850–55

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:

road race

Tour organizers had watched the men’s road race go up to Montmartre during the 2024 Olympics and felt immediately that Paris should be handed this gift again.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026

Switzerland's Muriel Furrer, 18, died after crashing during the junior road race in Zurich in her home country in 2024.

From BBC ● Mar. 31, 2026

The Olympic time-trial and road race champion finished the 12km course six seconds quicker than British rider Josh Tarling, with Frenchman Remi Cavagna in third.

From Barron's ● Feb. 17, 2026

O’Connor estimates he has shot 13.5 million elementary school photos; Knight got into the Santa and Easter Bunny businesses and bought the road race photography company MarathonFoto.

From Slate ● May 27, 2025

Look at the number of motor-cars now that followed the riders from town to town in a road race.

From "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway

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