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

Andresen said he wanted to be on the wheel of his main rival Brennan in the final hectic finishing sprint in Sunday's 183.8 kilometre road race and relished his opportunity to have the last crack.

From Barron's ● Feb. 1, 2026

The Tour of Flanders, which began in 1919 and known as De Ronde, is a historic one-day road race held in Belgium every spring and highlighted by climbs and cobbled sectors.

From BBC ● Apr. 6, 2025

Mr Kibble, who represented Wales in the 2018 Commonwealth Games in both the individual time trial and the road race, said the "highly watched tour" will "bring lots of great tourism and massive exposure".

From BBC ● Mar. 19, 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