DictionaryAI

street

SaySTREET/stɹit//stɹiːt/

Pluralstreets

17 meanings of street

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  1. 1
    public roadnouncountable
    A public road in a city, town, or village, together with the sidewalks and buildings that usually line it.

    The entire street smelled of fresh bread from the corner bakery.

    City planners want to make the street more friendly to pedestrians.

    UsagePeople live on a street, and a shop can be across the street or down the street. Names take a capital: Elm Street.

    Similarroad

  2. 2
    grid roadnounUScountable
    In a grid street plan, the roads that run perpendicular to the avenues.

    In the city grid, every street meets the avenues at ninety degrees.

    The numbered streets run crosstown, perpendicular to the long avenues.

    Note

    Some American grid plans, Manhattan's most famously, name their roads by direction. Streets run one way, and avenues cross them at right angles. In such a grid's names, street is not a general word for any road. It is one half of a pair, so its real contrast is with avenue, not with lane or road. The difference between the two is the direction a road runs, not how important it is.

    Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

    • Some American grids follow this convention. Washington, D.C., has streets in both grid directions and diagonal avenues. en.wikipedia.org
    • Street retains its general meaning in grid layouts; it also has a narrower meaning contrasting with avenue. nyc.gov
    • This explains a particular naming convention, not a universal distinction applicable to every grid. en.wikipedia.org
  3. 3
    stock marketnounabbreviationellipsis
    Short for Wall Street: the US financial markets and the banks and people who work in them.

    The Street shrugged off the gloomy forecast and rallied by noon.

    Few on the Street predicted such a sharp sell-off.

    UsageUsually the Street, often with a capital. In market news, Street estimates are what analysts expect.

    Note

    Finance shortens Wall Street to its last word, and the result stands for American financial markets as a whole. In market reporting it often means what analysts and investors expect. Results come in "ahead of the 1.2% expected by the street", or they edge out "street estimates".

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

    • The financial sense of street is an ellipsis of Wall Street. en.wiktionary.org
    • The quoted wording occurs in examples illustrating the financial sense; no speaker, publication date, or specific reporting event is attributed. en.wiktionary.org
  4. 4
    public opinionnounslangplural
    People in general, regarded as a source of information or opinion.

    Pollsters wanted to know what the street was saying about the scandal.

    The word on the street was that the band would get back together this summer.

    UsageMost common in word on the street: word on the street is that prices will rise. Also what the street is saying.

    Similarpublic, people, populace

    Note

    In slang the bare plural acts as an anonymous informant: "Streets say something's happening tomorrow." It gives a voice to what people in general are passing around.

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact

    • The illustrative sentence appears with this exact wording in Wiktionary. en.wiktionary.org
  5. 5
    rough city lifenoun
    Life lived largely on a city's streets, and the people who live it, especially the homeless, the poor, and those involved in gangs, drugs, or crime; often 'the streets'.

    The street has its own code, and outsiders rarely learn it.

    Charities working with the homeless know the street better than any official report.

    UsageOften plural: living on the streets, keeping young people off the streets.

    Note

    Here the word names a whole urban world, and it is often plural: the streets, with rules of their own. Noire's Thug-A-Licious (2006) gives the set phrase "the code of the streets", summed up as take or be taken. The neighborhood sense means the residents of one road. This sense means a milieu, and it carries hardship and danger with it.

    Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

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Origin

From Middle English strete, from Old English strēt, from Proto-West Germanic *strātu, an early borrowing from Late Latin (via) strāta meaning "paved (road)." This came from Latin strātus, the past participle of sternō ("to stretch out, spread, pave"), ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to stretch out, extend, spread." It is related to words like German Straße and Dutch straat.

Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 9 facts