Highways

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A system of primary roads engineered for rapid automobile transit
2. Major thoroughfares constructed for the efficient flow of traffic which link various urban areas
3. Routes designed as main public roads to facilitate vehicle movement between different locations

Etymology: "Highways" is simply the plural of "highway", so the history belongs to the singular. The word comes from Old English "hēahweġ", meaning "main road", built from "hēah" (high) and "weġ" (way). The Middle English forms "heiȝwai" and "heiȝwei" carried the same sense forward, and the compound fits a family of older English terms such as "highgate", "high street" and "high road", all of which name a principal route as "high" in contrast to smaller lanes and paths. The word also has a Scottish cousin, "heaway" or "hieway", which shows that the compound was shared across the north and south of Britain rather than being a purely southern coinage. Its sense has stayed remarkably stable: from medieval routes between villages and market towns to the modern motorways that link cities, the essential idea of a major road has never changed, only the vehicles and the scale.

Synonyms: roads, routes, thoroughfares