route

[root, rout]

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SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR route ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

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: a ship on the North Atlantic route.

a specific itinerary, round, or number of stops regularly visited by a person in the performance of his or her work or duty: a newspaper route; a mail carrier's route.

verb (used with object), rout·ed, rout·ing.

to fix the route of: to route a tour.

to send or forward by a particular route: to route mail to its proper destination.

Idioms

go the route, Informal.

to see something through to completion: It was a tough assignment, but he went the route.
Baseball.to pitch the complete game: The heat and humidity were intolerable, but the pitcher managed to go the route.

Origin of route

1175–1225; Middle English: way, course < Old French < Latin rupta (via) broken (road), feminine past participle of rumpere to break; cf. rout¹

Related formsmis·route, verb (used with object), mis·rout·ed, mis·rout·ing.pre·route, verb (used with object), pre·rout·ed, pre·rout·ing.re·route, verb, re·rout·ed, re·rout·ing.

Can be confusedroot rout route

Synonyms for route

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR route ON THESAURUS.COM

3. beat, circuit.

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for route

program, direction, way, course, track, passage, trail, journey, itinerary, line, avenue, road, transmit, pike, digression, run, meandering, rambling, plot, beat

Examples from the Web for route

Contemporary Examples of route

AirAsia has now been grounded on this route by the Indonesians.
Annoying Airport Delays Might Prevent You From Becoming the Next AirAsia 8501
Clive Irving
January 6, 2015
And increasingly smart navigation aids in the cockpit brought far greater precision and efficiency to route planning.
Flight 8501 Poses Question: Are Modern Jets Too Automated to Fly?
Clive Irving
January 4, 2015
After a hit, they would adjust the search to the most likely route from there.
Exclusive: Inside a Cop-Killer’s Final Hours
Michael Daly
December 31, 2014
The weather on the route of AirAsia Flight 8501 was not unusual for the region and the season.
Did Bad Weather Bring Down AirAsia 8501?
Clive Irving
December 29, 2014
I came [to personal essays] through the route of, if you want to call it intellection or a kind of interpretive [genre].
Daphne Merkin on Lena Dunham, Book Criticism, and Self-Examination
Mindy Farabee
December 26, 2014

Historical Examples of route

Along the route as, well as at the station, the party was cheered by a large crowd.
The Grand Old Man
Richard B. Cook
Vast crowds lined the route, afoot and in every kind of vehicle.
The Grand Old Man
Richard B. Cook
The view from the summit, made up for the deviation from my route.
Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia
Thomas Mitchell
Our route brought us along by the waterside, and we travelled hard all that night.
Ned Myers
James Fenimore Cooper
The route she was to follow was marked by a line of buoys and flags.
Heroes of the Telegraph
J. Munro

British Dictionary definitions for route

route

noun

the choice of roads taken to get to a place

a regular journey travelled

(capital) US a main road between citiesRoute 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 injectionoral route

verb routes, routing, routeing or routed (tr)

to plan the route of; send by a particular route

Word Origin for route

C13: from Old French rute, from Vulgar Latin rupta via (unattested), literally: a broken (established) way, from Latin ruptus broken, from rumpere to break, burst

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

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

Word Origin and History for route

early 13c., from Old French rute "road, way, path" (12c.), from Latin rupta (via) "(a road) opened by force," from rupta, fem. past participle of rumpere "to break" (see rupture (n.)). Sense of "fixed or regular course for carrying things" (cf. mail route) is 1792, an extension of the meaning "customary path of animals" (early 15c.).

1890, from route (n.). Related: Routed; routing.