Lanes

How to spell lanes

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce lanes

What does lanes mean?

1. nounNarrow roads, or marked strips set aside for a particular line of traffic or movement.

Lanes in a sentence

• The motorway was reduced to two lanes during the roadworks.

• Swimmers were asked to keep to their own lanes during practice.

Where does lanes come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English 'lane' or 'lanu', which meant a narrow road, path, or lane between hedges or buildings. The form belongs to a group of related Germanic words, including the Dutch 'laan' meaning an avenue or tree-lined walk, suggesting a shared ancestor describing a passage or way. From its earliest use it described a small thoroughfare too narrow for major traffic, a sense that survives in modern country lanes and city back lanes. Over centuries the meaning broadened to cover any marked strip set aside for a particular flow, so we now speak of motorway lanes, swimming lanes, and shipping lanes. The plural simply adds -s, and because the word is short and phonetically regular it rarely causes spelling trouble for adult writers.

How the word is built

• lane (a narrow road or marked strip)
• -s (plural)