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:
They later travel to the castle in a fleet of black cars, before Winkleman chooses her traitors while everyone wears their blindfolds.
From BBC ● Oct. 1, 2026
Experience: In June, Arey ran unsuccessfully to represent District 3 on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, a campaign that allowed her to travel throughout the district to hear the concerns of constituents.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
There is plenty of fine print on the hotel perks, including minimum nights, a certain dollar amount in each half of the year and booking through the bank travel portal.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 30, 2026
When two neutron stars merge, they generate gravitational waves that travel through space.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 30, 2026
It had taken them more than thirteen days to travel from Anchorage to Ikuma.
From "Black Star, Bright Dawn" by Scott O'Dell
These include a specialized sensory structure known as the macula neglecta, which may help them detect motion and vibrations generated as sound travels through water.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 30, 2026
So on Air Force One, for example, or in the Oval Office, the White House press pool accompanies the president to those kinds of places, and when he travels, accompanies him.
From Slate ● Sep. 30, 2026
Smoke from forest fires, crop burning and cooking are significant contributors to Africa's air pollution while Saharan dust travels as far as Europe.
From Barron's ● Sep. 30, 2026
“We’re a compound of our travels, lives, and experiences.”
From Salon ● Sep. 27, 2026
Elena suffered no effects from her parents' travels.
From "Women in Space" by Karen Bush Gibson
She took some classes, traveled with friends and eventually began volunteering.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 1, 2026
He traveled as a private citizen, rather than a politician, reveling in the region’s splendors, its ruins and estates, gardens and canals.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 30, 2026
She traveled the world and shared the stage with legendary artists, including Stevie Wonder and Chaka Khan.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 29, 2026
Another is to search for galaxies that might appear in different places on opposite sides of the sky because their light has traveled through a universe that wraps around itself.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 28, 2026
“But we’ve never actually time traveled before,” said Blake.
From "Glitch" by Laura Martin
Fury, 38, has travelled back from the United States, where he had been at Walt Disney World Resort with his family, while Joshua, 36, has flown in from his training camp in Dubai.
From BBC ● Sep. 29, 2026
The performance then travelled across cities in Europe, with only one show per location.
From BBC ● Sep. 29, 2026
She swam across a river into China at night with a smuggler's help, and travelled through Laos, Vietnam and Thailand before finally flying to South Korea.
From Barron's ● Sep. 28, 2026
A 36-year-old man was arrested a day after Nxumalo's death after he had travelled to another province.
From BBC ● Sep. 28, 2026
“No, not about the letters. As far as I can remember, his words were: ‘We travelled about.
From "Murder on the Orient Express" by Agatha Christie
The coming months will show whether travelers might be discouraged from traveling due to geopolitical instability, IATA’s Marie Owens Thomsen says.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 1, 2026
In principle, that could mean traveling continuously in one direction would eventually return you to where you started, much as traveling around Earth can bring you back to your starting point.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 28, 2026
But Gulf producers, shipping companies and the U.S. adapted through U.S. military protection, mine-cleared lanes, commercial vessels’ traveling covertly, ship-to-ship transfers outside the Gulf, and bypass routes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 27, 2026
Police received a call shortly after midnight Sunday about three suspicious vehicles apparently traveling toward RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, England, near the southern Welsh border.
From Salon ● Sep. 27, 2026
When he got to the bank, he was still traveling, and breathing real hard when he got to the fire.
From "The Teacher’s Funeral" by Richard Peck
The airline said it was another "on-duty flydubai crew travelling on the flight who diverted and landed the aircraft safely" and that it was suspending flights to Israel while an investigation took place.
From Barron's ● Oct. 1, 2026
Two on-duty crew travelling on the flight were then able to land the plane safely, Flydubai said.
From BBC ● Oct. 1, 2026
"Because of the stagnant water and the fact that the water wasn't travelling anywhere, we were going past them every day in exactly the same spot."
From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2026
Gloucestershire Constabulary said it had received a call about "three suspicious vehicles" travelling towards the military airbase at 00:45 BST on Sunday.
From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2026
I’ve been past those fields every day, morning and evening, travelling by, oblivious.
From "The Girl on the Train" by Paula Hawkins
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.
