road metal

American

noun

British.

broken stone, cinders, etc., used for making roads.

road metal British

noun

crushed rock, broken stone, etc, used to construct a road

"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

Etymology

Origin of road metal

First recorded in 1810–20

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.

I had a medium-brown driveway that used chert road metal from the Meramec River region in Missouri.

From Seattle Times • Jun. 19, 2023

It is worked in many pits for road metal.

From The Geological Story of the Isle of Wight by Hughes, J. Cecil

Hornblende gneiss from St Sampson and quartz diorite from Capelles, Corv�e and elsewhere are transported to England for road metal.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 7 "Cerargyrite" to "Charing Cross" by Various

They have then only to remove the top surface of road metal and the concrete cover in order to expose the pipe and get at the breach.

From Scientific American Supplement, No. 531, March 6, 1886 by Various

ThePg 187 paths were made of Turkish tombstones, which were always used in Uskub for road metal.

From The Luck of Thirteen Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia by Gordon, Cora

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