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Showing results for cloverleaf. Search instead for cloverleafed.
Synonyms

cloverleaf

American  
[kloh-ver-leef] / ˈkloʊ vərˌlif /

noun

plural

cloverleafs, cloverleaves

  1. a road arrangement, resembling a four-leaf clover in form, for permitting easy traffic movement between two intersecting high-speed highways. One highway passes over the other, and both are joined by a system of curved feeder roads permitting vehicles to enter and leave the highways.

adjective

  1. shaped like or resembling a leaf or leaves of clover.

cloverleaf British  
/ ˈkləʊvəˌliːf /

noun

  1. an arrangement of connecting roads, resembling a four-leaf clover in form, that joins two intersecting main roads

  2. (modifier) in the shape or pattern of a leaf of clover

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

  • cloverleafed adjective

Etymology

Origin of cloverleaf

First recorded in 1930–35; clover + leaf

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Regularly, I found myself inching around the cloverleaf next to a handsome man in a blue BMW.

From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 26, 2024

Creatively designed roadways captured the public’s imagination, such as the first cloverleaf interchange, erected in Woodbridge Township, New Jersey, in 1928, which allowed drivers to move between two highways without crossings or left turns.

From Slate • Aug. 28, 2024

The sanctuary area was something of a maritime highway cloverleaf.

From Seattle Times • Mar. 1, 2023

A tRNA molecule often is depicted as a cloverleaf, with an anticodon on one end, and the amino acid attachment site at the other.

From Textbooks • Jun. 9, 2022

They each set out in a different direction, making a cloverleaf, meeting back at the apartment.

From "Typical American" by Gish Jen

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.