Arterials

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A network of major roads designed to facilitate the flow of traffic across a region
2. The primary routes that absorb and distribute traffic from smaller roads to larger highways
3. Essential thoroughfares that connect significant urban areas while providing access to various local streets

Etymology: "Arterials" is simply the plural of "arterial," so the real story belongs to the word it comes from. "Artery" was borrowed into Middle English from Latin "arteria," which in turn came from Greek "artēria." The ancient Greeks and Romans used the term for the windpipe and the larger blood vessels alike, and the modern sense of a vessel carrying blood from the heart was settled only later. The Latin-derived "-al" suffix, which passed through Old French, turned "artery" into an adjective meaning "of or relating to an artery," and it was from that adjective that English later gained the road sense. The traffic meaning is a modern extension. The metaphor works on the same logic as the body's arteries: a main channel carrying a large flow, branching out from a central point. Engineers and planners adopted "arterial" for the major routes that feed smaller streets, and the plural "arterials" is the everyday term for those networks of main roads.

Synonyms: main roads, primary roads, thoroughfares, highways, boulevards