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definitions

route

[root, rout]
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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: a ship on the North Atlantic route.
  3. 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.
  1. to fix the route of: to route a tour.
  2. to send or forward by a particular route: to route mail to its proper destination.
Idioms
  1. go the route, Informal.
    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.

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

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3. beat, circuit.
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

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

Historical Examples of route

British Dictionary definitions for route

route

noun
  1. the choice of roads taken to get to a place
  2. a regular journey travelled
  3. (capital) US a main road between citiesRoute 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 injectionoral route
verb routes, routing, routeing or routed (tr)
  1. 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
n.

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.).

v.

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

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper