Freeway
nounA multi-lane road designed for fast traffic, with no tolls, traffic lights, or direct crossings.
How to spell freeway
7 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce freeway
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does freeway mean?
- nounA multi-lane road designed for fast traffic, with no tolls, traffic lights, or direct crossings.
Freeway in a sentence
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The morning crash closed three lanes of the freeway for hours.
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She merged onto the freeway and set the cruise control for the long drive home.
Where does freeway come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
Freeway is a transparent compound of two old native English words. 'Free' descends from the Old English freo, meaning 'not in bondage' or 'unrestricted', while 'way' comes from Old English weg, an ancient word for a road or path that has cousins right across the Germanic languages. The combination is modern and American: it was coined in the 1930s for a new kind of high-speed road that was 'free' in two senses, free of cross-traffic and intersections, and free of tolls. The term became firmly established as the United States built its mid-century network of limited-access highways, and it spread into Canadian usage too. Because both halves are ordinary everyday words, the only real spelling point is remembering the doubled 'e' in 'free' running straight into 'way' with no space or hyphen.
How the word is built
- free (unobstructed, toll-free)
- way (road, path)
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