roads
- 1Plural of road.
Heavy rain washed out several roads in the valley.
The city plans to repave its busiest roads next year.
Note
A regular plural that serves nearly every meaning of road: highways and country lanes, the underground tunnels of a mine, the paths a life or career might take, and, in archaic American use, railroads. The one meaning it cannot carry is road as a means of travel, which stays uncountable (goods sent by road). Near a coast, "the roads" may instead be the sheltered anchorage.
- 2A sheltered stretch of water near the shore where ships can lie safely at anchor, less enclosed than a harbor.
The fleet anchored in the roads outside the harbor entrance.
Several merchant vessels rode at anchor in the calm roads that night.
Note
A sailor's word that is almost always plural, even for a single anchorage. Ships lie "in the roads", and a place name such as Hampton Roads keeps the plural form. The singular appears only occasionally. In ordinary prose, treat it as a shorter way of saying roadstead, and give it a plural verb: the roads were crowded with shipping.
roads is a form of road
road, noun: A wide way leading from one place to another, especially one with a specially prepared surface that vehicles can use. Full entry
- Forms
- roadroads plural
- Spelling
- road → roads: add -s
Use it in a sentence
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