thoroughfare
/ˈθʌɹəfɛː/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.91 in modern English
22
Scrabble Score
12
Letters
3
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A road open at both ends or connecting one area with another; a highway or main street.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "“I ask you,” cried Lloyd George in 1909. “Are we to have all the ways of reform, financial and social, blocked simply by a notice board: ‘No thoroughfare. By order of Nathanial Rothschild’?”"
- "In the scullery Smiley had once more checked his thoroughfare, shoved some deck-chairs aside, and pinned a string to the mangle to guide him because he saw badly in the dark."
- "Mr. Roscoe, on the contrary, has claimed none of the accorded privileges of talent. He has shut himself up in no garden of thought, no elysium of fancy; but has gone forth into the highways and thoroughfares of life; […]."
- "a dozen houses were quickly blazing, including those of Sir John Fielding and two other justices, and four in Holborn – one of the greatest thoroughfares in London – which were all burning at the same time, and burned until they went out of themselves, for the people cut the engine hose, and would not suffer the firemen to play upon the flames."
- "With some of it on the south and more of it on the north of the great main thoroughfare that connects Aldgate and the East India Docks, St. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London."
- "East [Street] and West Street form a single thoroughfare running as a backbone through the village, flanked by neat, painted cottages of predominantly 18th-century brick."
Etymology
From Middle English thurghfare, corresponding to thorough- (“through”) + fare. Compare Old English þurhfaran (“to go through, go over, traverse, pierce, pass through, pass beyond, transcend, penetrate”). Compare also Old English þurhfær (“inner secret place”), German Durchfahrt (“passage through, thoroughfare”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- British English: /ˈθʌɹəfɛː/
Usage
Inflected Forms
thoroughfares (plural)
thorofare (alternative)
throughfare (alternative)
thoroughfair (alternative, obsolete)
thorowfair (alternative, obsolete)