route
Americannoun
-
routes
plural
-
a course, way, or road for passage or travel.
What's the shortest route to Boston?
-
a customary or regular line of passage or travel.
There's a ship from our company on the North Atlantic route.
-
a specific itinerary, round, or number of stops regularly visited by a person in the performance of their work or duty.
a newspaper route;
a mail carrier's route.
verb (used with object)
-
routes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
routed,
past participle, past
-
routing
present participle
-
to set the path of.
to route a tour.
-
to send or forward by a particular course or road.
It's the post office's job to route mail to its proper destination.
idioms
noun
-
the choice of roads taken to get to a place
-
a regular journey travelled
-
(capital) a main road between cities
Route 66
-
mountaineering the direction or course taken by a climb
-
med the means by which a drug or agent is administered or enters the body, such as by mouth or by injection
oral route
verb
Usage
When forming the present participle or verbal noun from the verb to route it is preferable to retain the e in order to distinguish the word from routing , the present participle or verbal noun from rout 1 , to defeat or rout 2 , to dig, rummage: the routeing of buses from the city centre to the suburbs . The spelling routing in this sense is, however, sometimes encountered, esp in American English
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
routesimple
-
routessimple
-
have routedperfect
-
has routedperfect
-
am routingprogressive
-
are routingprogressive
-
is routingprogressive
-
have been routingperfect progressive
-
has been routingperfect progressive
Past
-
routedsimple
-
had routedperfect
-
was routingprogressive
-
were routingprogressive
-
had been routingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of route
First recorded in 1175–1225; Middle English: “way, course,” from Old French, from Latin rupta (via) “broken (road),” feminine past participle of rumpere “to break”; cf. rout 1
Explanation
A route is a way for travel or movement, the path from point A to point B. A route can also be the method used for achieving a particular result, like going to school and working hard is your route to success. Route comes from an Old French word, rute, “road,” “way,” or “path” and the Latin rupta, “broken way” or “beaten way.” A route can be a highway, like Route 66, or all the places you pass through on the way somewhere, like using a map to find the shortest route. As a verb, route means "to send people or things on a particular course," like detour signs that route you through unfamiliar streets or a package that is routed through Cleveland on its way to you.
Vocabulary lists containing route
The Best Starting Words for Wordle
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Make a Break for It: Rupt
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American Football, 1st Quarter
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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:
The most promising route for Oura, and for other wellness startups such as Whoop, is to get someone else to pay.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2026
Unison said the breakthrough created a route towards a ballot of its membership, without the council dictating the union's recommendation or communications.
From BBC ● Oct. 5, 2026
Hernández took a circuitous route to the ball, trying to cut it off and then having to adjust back when it became clear he was too shallow.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 5, 2026
Thousands blocked the procession on September 27, halting the first parade which had been allowed along the route in almost three decades.
From Barron's ● Oct. 5, 2026
En route, he was collared by military police and hauled back to camp, where he stood trembling before his commander, Kurt Meyer.
From "Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow" by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
These agents draw on the models to autonomously discover vulnerabilities and plan attack routes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2026
Authorities in Islamabad have stacked up shipping containers to block key access routes to the capital city.
From BBC ● Oct. 5, 2026
The Middle East is, among other things, like a cerebrum of the world nervous system: its exposed nerves—trade routes and oil pipelines—making it especially sensitive to the rest of the body.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 4, 2026
The cancellations took place on mainline routes after the bugs were spotted on 22 September.
From BBC ● Oct. 3, 2026
They tempted you to trace pathways with your eyes, finding routes between this place and that.
From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor
Before the Iran war restricted exports through the Strait of Hormuz, the kingdom routed most of its oil via the narrow waterway to customers in Asia.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 5, 2026
They also routed water to 350 acres of new earthen basins.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 26, 2026
The Rams arrived the day before the game, and then routed the Jaguars.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 4, 2026
Shakeel ensured the visitors were not routed, only for Robinson to return to remove Shan Masood and Muhammad Rizwan in successive overs.
From BBC ● Aug. 30, 2026
After a long and bloody encounter in which something like 50,000 casualties were incurred, the Union troops routed the Confederates—but then squandered the best opportunity they’d yet had to smash General Lee’s army decisively.
From "Words Like Loaded Pistols" by Sam Leith
Over the last several years, work crews there have been restoring natural floodplains along rivers and creeks, building recharge basins, and routing floodwater to farm fields where it can soak into the land.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 26, 2026
The U.S. is guiding convoys through the Strait of Hormuz, and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are routing more crude through pipelines that bypass the waterway.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 10, 2026
Microsoft’s winning strategy doesn’t come from owning the best model, but rather routing user requests in the most efficient manner across Microsoft AI and third-party providers, according to the analyst.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 1, 2026
Open models, it said, are hosted in Harvey-controlled infrastructure or through partners, which provides greater control over deployment, routing, security and cost.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026
Or we pass around our routing sheet and study the day’s owners’ “Hot Buttons,” as sketched in by Tammy.
From "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" by Barbara Ehrenreich
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
