route

American  

[root, rout] / rut, raʊt /

noun

1. a course, way, or road for passage or travel.

   What's the shortest route to Boston?

2. a customary or regular line of passage or travel.

   There's a ship from our company on the North Atlantic route.

3. 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.

   Synonyms:

   circuit, beat

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verb (used with object)

routed, routing

1. to set the path of.

   to route a tour.

2. 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

1. go the route,

   1. to see something through to completion.

      It was a tough assignment, but he went the route.

   2. Baseball. to pitch the complete game.

      The heat and humidity were intolerable, but the pitcher managed to go the route.

route British  

/ ruːt /

noun

1. the choice of roads taken to get to a place

2. a regular journey travelled

3. (capital) a main road between cities

   Route 66

4. mountaineering the direction or course taken by a climb

5. med the means by which a drug or agent is administered or enters the body, such as by mouth or by injection

   oral route

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verb

1. to plan the route of; send by a particular route

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

• misroute verb (used with object)
• preroute verb (used with object)
• reroute verb

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”; rout ¹

Example Sentences

In May, Read will be walking the Camino Francés route in Spain to raise funds for the charity that supported her recovery.

From BBC

Shaun Jones, AA expert patrol, urged drivers to consider delaying their journey or work from home if possible, adding wintry conditions could "reduce visibility in seconds" leading to familiar routes becoming "hazardous very quickly".

From BBC

Instead they've taken the longer and more expensive route around southern Africa.

From BBC

Lessons from that have likely been learned and a new pipeline could be built more cheaply, Oberstoetter said, though nothing about a project has yet been agreed upon, including a route.

From The Wall Street Journal

She said both seized vessels "were either last docked in Venezuela or en route to it".

From BBC

Related Words

• avenue
• course
• direction
• itinerary
• journey
• line
• passage
• road
• track
• trail
• way