travel
Americanverb (used without object)
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travels,
present (3rd person singular)
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traveled,
past participle, past
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travelled,
past participle, past (especially British)
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traveling,
present participle
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travelling
present participle (especially British)
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to go from one place to another, as by car, train, plane, or ship; take a trip; journey.
to travel for pleasure.
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to move or go from one place or point to another.
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to proceed or advance in any way.
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to go from place to place as a representative of a business firm.
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to associate or consort.
He travels in a wealthy crowd.
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Informal. to move with speed.
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to pass, or be transmitted, as light or sound.
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Basketball. (of a player in possession of the ball) to take more than two steps without dribbling or passing the ball.
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to move in a fixed course, as a piece of mechanism.
verb (used with object)
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travels,
present (3rd person singular)
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traveled,
past participle, past
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travelled,
past participle, past (especially British)
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traveling,
present participle
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travelling
present participle (especially British)
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to travel, journey, or pass through or over, as a country or road.
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to journey or traverse (a specified distance).
We traveled a hundred miles.
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to cause to journey; ship.
to travel logs downriver.
noun
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the act of traveling; journeying, especially to distant places.
to travel to other planets.
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travels,
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to set out on one's travels.
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journeys as the subject of a written account or literary work.
a book of travels.
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such an account or work.
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the coming and going of persons or conveyances along a way of passage; traffic.
an increase in travel on state roads.
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Basketball. an instance of traveling with the ball.
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Machinery.
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the complete movement of a moving part, especially a reciprocating part, in one direction, or the distance traversed; stroke.
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length of stroke.
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movement or passage in general.
to reduce the travel of food from kitchen to table.
adjective
verb
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to go, move, or journey from one place to another
he travels to improve his mind
she travelled across France
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(tr) to go, move, or journey through or across (an area, region, etc)
he travelled the country
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to go, move, or cover a specified or unspecified distance
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to go from place to place as a salesman
to travel in textiles
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(esp of perishable goods) to withstand a journey
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(of light, sound, etc) to be transmitted or move
the sound travelled for miles
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to progress or advance
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basketball to take an excessive number of steps while holding the ball
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(of part of a mechanism) to move in a fixed predetermined path
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informal to move rapidly
that car certainly travels
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informal (often foll by with) to be in the company (of); associate
noun
-
-
the act of travelling
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( as modifier )
a travel brochure
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(usually plural) a tour or journey
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the distance moved by a mechanical part, such as the stroke of a piston
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movement or passage
Spelling
The word travel has come to exemplify a common spelling quandary: to double or not to double the final consonant of a verb before adding the ending that forms the past tense ( –ed ) or the ending that forms the present-participle ( –ing. ) We see it done both ways—sometimes with the same word ( travel, traveled, traveling; travel, travelled, travelling ). As readers, we accept these variations without even thinking about them. But as writers, we need to know just when we should double that final consonant and when we should not. Because American practice differs slightly from British practice, there is no one answer. But there are well-established conventions. In American writing, when you have a one-syllable verb that ends with a single vowel followed by a single consonant, and you want to add a regular inflectional ending that begins with a vowel, you double that final consonant before adding -ed or -ing : stop, stopped, stopping; flag, flagged, flagging. This principle also holds for verbs of more than one syllable if the final syllable is stressed: permit, permitted, permitting; refer, referred, referring. If that syllable is not stressed, there is no doubling of the final consonant: gallop, galloped, galloping; travel, traveled, traveling. British spelling conventions are similar. They deviate from American practices only when the verb ends with a single vowel followed by an l . In that case, no matter the stress pattern, the final l gets doubled. Thus British writing has repel, repelled, repelling (as would American writing, since the final syllable is stressed). But it also has travel, travelled, travelling and cancel, cancelled, cancelling, since in the context of British writing the verb’s final l, not its stress pattern, is the determining factor. Verbs ending in other consonants have the same doubling patterns that they would have in American writing. An outlier on both sides of the Atlantic is the small group of verbs ending in -ic and one lonely -ac verb. They require an added k before inflectional endings in order to retain the appropriate “hard” sound of the letter c : panic, panicked, panicking; frolic, frolicked, frolicking; shellac, shellacked, shellacking. Canadians, of course, are free to use either British or American spellings.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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pretravelnoun
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outtravelverb (used with object)
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nontravelingadjective
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nontravellingadjective
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travelableadjective
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untravelingadjective
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untravellingadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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travelsimple
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travelssimple
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have traveledperfect
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have travelledperfect
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has traveledperfect
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has travelledperfect
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am travelingprogressive
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am travellingprogressive
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are travelingprogressive
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are travellingprogressive
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is travelingprogressive
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is travellingprogressive
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have been travelingperfect progressive
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have been travellingperfect progressive
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has been travelingperfect progressive
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has been travellingperfect progressive
Past
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traveledsimple
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travelledsimple
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had traveledperfect
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had travelledperfect
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was travelingprogressive
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was travellingprogressive
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were travelingprogressive
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were travellingprogressive
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had been travelingperfect progressive
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had been travellingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of travel
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English (Northern and Scots), originally the same word as travail (by semantic change from “to toil, labor,” then “to make a laborious journey,” then “to journey,” a change that did not occur in French and other Romance languages); spelling travel is due to an accent shift in the 14th century
Explanation
To travel is the act of going from one place to another, usually a considerable distance. Your daily commute in the morning doesn't generally count as travel. Your trip to Timbuktu? That counts. Travel can also be used as a noun — as in your travels to Timbuktu. Or perhaps you prefer time travel or space travel. Objects that are especially adapted for use when you travel are often modified by the word travel; for example, a "travel-bag," "travel- games," or a "travel iron." And if something is particularly popular in another country or culture from its place of origin, say a cheese, a wine, or a type of music, it's said to "travel well."
Vocabulary lists containing travel
"Mysteries of the Ancient Past"
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"Escaping to Freedom" and "Follow the Drinking Gourd"
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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:
Prosecutors allege that Davis acquired a gun and organised two vehicles to travel to a Las Vegas club, one of them a white Cadillac, which carried three other men, including his nephew, Anderson.
From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2026
Costco, the No. 1 warehouse club chain, sells everything from groceries and tires to eyeglasses and electronics and offers services such as travel planning, solar panels and pet insurance.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 18, 2026
When Travis Kelce stepped off his new wife’s private jet last month in Palm Beach, Fla., his travel companion caught people’s attention.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026
For the most part, the retrofuturistic vibes of the northern Virginia airport provide some aesthetic relief from the contemporary indignities of air travel.
From Slate ● Aug. 18, 2026
Running with the wolves, they would travel at a slow pace, hunting for food.
From "Black Star, Bright Dawn" by Scott O'Dell
The average heater in 2026 travels at a record 94.8 mph, up 3 mph from when MLB began consistent tracking in 2008.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026
Astronomers may have found some of the strongest evidence yet for one of quantum mechanics' strangest predictions: even apparently empty space can influence the way light travels.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 18, 2026
Rubio also singled out Kennedy’s commitment to a meat-and-sauerkraut-heavy diet, saying the health secretary travels with his own food.
From Salon ● Aug. 15, 2026
Hanna helped develop a mobile shipping container called ScanVan that physically travels to the Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals and academic centers to pull data from archives and make it available.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 15, 2026
Billy Lee made his way to New York, his travels slowed by the severe pain in his damaged knees.
From "In the Shadow of Liberty" by Kenneth C. Davis
Although the physical ring may measure only a few millimeters, the total effective distance traveled by the light depends on how little energy is lost from the waveguide each time it goes around.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 17, 2026
Hamas chief Khalil al-Hayya traveled late Saturday to the Egyptian Mediterranean city of El-Alamein in his first trip since taking over the Gaza-based Islamist movement last month.
From Barron's ● Aug. 16, 2026
He said he later got into silk trading, often sleeping in communal beds with other people as he traveled from town to town buying and selling fabric.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026
People who previously traveled and returned to the U.S. won’t be affected and could still adjust their immigration status.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2026
Many miles of track could be traveled only at a crawl.
From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom
SFA chief football officer Muholland and chief executive Maxwell travelled around the world speaking to potential candidates, and the former says Pocognoli impressed both in a data sense and on a personal level.
From BBC ● Aug. 17, 2026
He travelled with his children but upon seeing the chaos at the border, he took them home before returning again to swim across on his own.
From Barron's ● Aug. 15, 2026
Michael Bone, 58, and his partner Alan Hawkins, 54, travelled from central England to Mumbles "to pay our respects".
From Barron's ● Aug. 15, 2026
Last autumn, he and his friends travelled to Mexico City and opted for a direct flight from Vancouver instead.
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026
“We travelled together from out west. He’s a good hunter.”
From "The Marrow Thieves" by Cherie Dimaline
Fans traveling from as far away as Hawaii flooded the South Hall of the L.A.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 17, 2026
On the walls where gang members in El Salvador once marked their turf, urban artists are now creating large murals in a traveling festival that fills the streets of the Central American country with color.
From Barron's ● Aug. 17, 2026
It was traveling along the line of sight at more than 6,000 kilometers per second, indicating that a densely bound structure may have survived the initial blast and was now moving rapidly toward us.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 16, 2026
Many of those on Air Force One, including the traveling press, didn’t appreciate discovering that they had been put on a decoy plane that government officials thought Iran might blow to smithereens.
From Slate ● Aug. 15, 2026
Once a week, Leah began traveling to Jersey City to hold regular séances at various homes for Willets’s circle.
From "American Spirits" by Barb Rosenstock
Manchester City, meanwhile, start with a home game against Bournemouth, before travelling to Crystal Palace, hosting Coventry, playing at rivals Manchester United and then facing Sunderland at home.
From BBC ● Aug. 16, 2026
While European liquidity broadly follows American trends, there is one sphere in which the liquidity cycle differs markedly: China, which is also travelling in the opposite direction, according to Howell.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 14, 2026
The 32-year-old, who was arrested in a US airport while travelling with Farage, admitted a count of wire fraud in the US in 2017.
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026
Having jumped off a five-metre board, she was probably travelling at around 20mph by the time she hit the water.
From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2026
It provides an abstract account of lines in space, travelling from the object, through the picture plane, to the eye, and an account of how these lines appear on the picture plane itself.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
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.
