Parkway

How to spell parkway

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce parkway

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does parkway mean?

1. nounA broad road, often landscaped with trees and grass, sometimes restricted to non-commercial traffic.

Parkway in a sentence

• The parkway curved gently past rows of maple trees on both sides.

• Heavy trucks are banned from the parkway, so only cars may use it.

Where does parkway come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a compound of two ordinary English words, 'park' and 'way', joined to describe a road designed to run through or alongside landscaped greenery. 'Park' came into English in the 1200s through Old French 'parc', meaning an enclosed tract of ground reserved for hunting or pleasure, which itself traces back to a Germanic root for a fenced enclosure. 'Way', by contrast, is a native Old English word, 'weg', meaning a path or road, and it shares ancient kinship with Latin 'via' and the verb 'to wend'. The compound 'parkway' was coined in nineteenth-century North America for broad scenic roads that were deliberately bordered by trees, lawns and planted margins, the most famous early examples being designed by the landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. Because it is simply two familiar words run together, its spelling holds no surprises beyond remembering it is written as one solid word.

How the word is built

• park (enclosed green ground)
• way (road, route)