Pathed

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Cleared or marked out a route through land, vegetation, or snow so that people could travel across it
2. Created a track or passage over rough ground by wearing down or clearing a way through it
3. Formed a trail through an area, typically by treading, cutting, or otherwise opening up a course for walking

Etymology: "Pathed" is simply the past tense and past participle of "path," used when someone or something has been made into a path, as when a trail is trodden or cleared through grass or snow. The verb is formed by adding the regular "-ed" ending to the noun. The noun itself goes back a long way. Old English had "pæþ," meaning a track or way, which came from a Proto-Germanic form "*paþaz." Its relatives are still spoken today in German ("Pfad"), Dutch ("pad"), and West Frisian ("paad"), so the word has stayed remarkably stable across the Germanic languages. Some scholars have proposed that the Germanic word was borrowed from an ancient Iranian language, though this idea remains disputed. Old English also gave us a remarkable sibling. The Sanskrit "panthā," meaning "path," shows a cognate relationship with the English word, and "panth" is a doublet of "path," the two words descending from the same ancestor by separate routes.