Macadamised

Part of speech: verb, adjective

Definitions

1. Paved a road by spreading crushed stone bonded with tar or a similar binder across its surface
2. Covered a roadway with compacted broken rock set in a bituminous or cementing material
3. Surfaced a track using layers of crushed stone that were rolled and fixed in place with a binding agent

Etymology: John Loudon McAdam was a Scottish road engineer whose surname gave English a word for a way of building roads. His method layered carefully sized crushed stone and compacted it so that traffic and weather would not break the surface apart. The surfacing became known as macadam, after him. To macadamise a road was to surface it in this manner. The word is the simple past and past participle of "macadamise," so a road described as macadamised had been built to McAdam's design. Later, tar was added to macadam, and the shortened form "tarmac" came to name the dark road surface most people now picture.