About 10,000 years ago, with the advent of agriculture, humans started living in permanent houses which were clustered together. The pathways between the houses eventually became streets and alleys and the paths that connected villages to facilitate trade became roads and highways.
Briefly described below are the etymologies of some of the words used to describe the transportation infrastructure.
Street
The English noun street is a word which has been used in English since the days of the Roman occupation of Britain. The Romans built roads throughout their vast empire. These roads were paved with stone and were thus known as via strata in which strata is the feminine past participle of the Latin verb sternere meaning “to lay down, spread out, pave” which comes from the Proto-Indo-European *stre-to- meaning “to stretch, extend.”
Old English turned the Late Latin strata into stret in the Mercian and Kentish dialects and stræt in the West Saxon dialect. In Old English, stret referred to a paved way or Roman road. Over time, it was used for urban streets and other roads. In the Middle Ages, road and way were used for the direction that people went, and street was used for the physical structure.
Some related expressions:
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Man in the street: meaning “ordinary person, non-expert” came into English in 1831
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On the street: meaning “homeless” was first used in 1852
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Street people: meaning “homeless people” came into use in 1967
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Street sweeper: as an occupation emerged in 1848
Avenue
The word avenue came into English as a military word meaning “a way of approach” about 1600. About 1650, the meaning began to shift to mean “a way of approach to a country house” (with the implication of a “broad, tree-lined roadway). By 1846, in the United States avenue had acquired the meaning of a “wide, main street.”
The source of the English avenue is the Latin verb advenire meaning “to come to” which was formed with ad meaning “to” plus venire meaning “to come.” This verb became avenue in Old French with the meaning of “act of approaching, arrival.” In Middle French avenue acquired the meaning of “way of access.” English acquired avenue from Middle French.
Road
The roots of the modern English word road are related to the modern English words ride and raid. All of these come from the Proto-Indo-European *reidh- meaning “to ride” which became *raido in Proto-Germanic and rad in Old English. The Old English rad had the meaning of “riding expedition, journey, hostile incursion.” The modern meaning which expresses the idea of a track or way for traffic did not appear until the 1590s. Previously, street and way had been used to express this idea. The modern spelling—road—was established in the eighteenth century.
Some road expressions:
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On the road, with the meaning of “traveling” first appeared in the 1640s.
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Road hog first appeared in 1886.
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Road rage first appeared in 1988.
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Road map dates to 1786.
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Road trip was first used in American English in 1950 and was a baseball term.
The idea of being “road weary” was expressed in the Old English radwerig.
Highway
Before the seventeenth century, high street (from the Old English heahstræte ) was used for main roads, particularly the Roman roads. After this time, highway (from the Old English heahweg came into use for referring to a main road from one town to another.
Alley
The modern English word alley came into English in the mid-fourteenth century with the meaning of “passage in a house; open passage between buildings; walkway in a garden.” The word was derived from the Old French alee meaning “a path, passage, way, corridor.”