Boulevard
nounA broad, often tree-lined city street or avenue.
How to spell boulevard
9 letters · 3 syllables
How to pronounce boulevard
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does boulevard mean?
- nounA broad, often tree-lined city street or avenue.
Boulevard in a sentence
-
The cafe sits on a busy boulevard in the centre of town.
-
They bought an apartment overlooking a leafy boulevard.
Where does boulevard come from?
Language of origin: French
The word came into English from French boulevard in the late 1700s, where it named a broad, tree-lined avenue. The French form is a striking borrowing of the Dutch (or Middle High German) word bolwerk, meaning a 'bulwark' or defensive rampart, the same source that gave English the word 'bulwark' itself. The connection makes sense once you know the history: when many European cities tore down their old fortified walls, the wide flat strips of land left behind were turned into grand promenades, so the name for the rampart became the name for the road built on top of it. French softened the harsh Germanic 'bolwerk' into the smoother 'boulevard', and the silent-looking spelling with 'ou' and a final 'd' that is barely heard is a clear fingerprint of that French stage. Knowing it once meant a rampart, not a road, is a handy way to remember the unusual 'boule-' opening rather than the 'bull-' that the sound suggests.
How the word is built
- boulevard (whole word from French; ultimately from Dutch bolwerk: rampart, bulwark)
Fix your spelling for good.
Spelling Garden finds the words you personally get wrong, plants them in a garden, and brings each one back just before you would have forgotten it.
Just five minutes a day is all it takes to fix your spelling.