route

[ root, rout ]

noun

1. a course, way, or road for passage or travel:

   What's the shortest route to Boston?

2. a customary or regular line of passage or travel:

   There's a ship from our company on the North Atlantic route.

3. a specific itinerary, round, or number of stops regularly visited by a person in the performance of their work or duty:

   a newspaper route;

   a mail carrier's route.

   Synonyms: circuit, beat

verb (used with object)

, rout·ed, rout·ing.

1. to set the path of:

   to route a tour.

2. to send or forward by a particular course or road:

   It's the post office's job to route mail to its proper destination.

route

/ ruːt /

noun

1. the choice of roads taken to get to a place
2. a regular journey travelled
3. capital a main road between cities

   Route 66

4. mountaineering the direction or course taken by a climb
5. med the means by which a drug or agent is administered or enters the body, such as by mouth or by injection

   oral route

verb

1. to plan the route of; send by a particular route

Usage

When forming the present participle or verbal noun from the verb to route it is preferable to retain the e in order to distinguish the word from routing , the present participle or verbal noun from rout ¹, to defeat or rout ², to dig, rummage: the routeing of buses from the city centre to the suburbs . The spelling routing in this sense is, however, sometimes encountered, esp in American English

Other Words From

• mis·route verb (used with object) misrouted misrouting
• pre·route verb (used with object) prerouted prerouting
• re·route verb rerouted rerouting

Word History and Origins

Origin of route¹

First recorded in 1175–1225; Middle English: “way, course,” from Old French, from Latin rupta (via) “broken (road),” feminine past participle of rumpere “to break”; rout ¹

Word History and Origins

Origin of route¹

C13: from Old French rute , from Vulgar Latin rupta via (unattested), literally: a broken (established) way, from Latin ruptus broken, from rumpere to break, burst

Idioms and Phrases

Idioms

1. go the route, Informal.
   1. to see something through to completion:

      It was a tough assignment, but he went the route.

   2. Baseball. to pitch the complete game:

      The heat and humidity were intolerable, but the pitcher managed to go the route.

Example Sentences

Those industries would later build several dams along the route to provide hydroelectric power.

From Outside Online

Well, the company going through the direct route is likely to pay fewer fees as they are hiring bankers as advisors rather than underwriters.

From Fortune

That route relies on a protein-cutting enzyme called TMPRSS2 to snip the knobby-looking spike protein studding the virus’s surface.

From Science News

Visitors can walk or ride the Towpath Trail to follow the historic route of the Ohio & Erie Canal.

From No Straight News

Those that didn’t take the layoffs route cut salaries for their employees.

From Quartz

Did the airline file a flight plan that took account of the weather en route from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore?

From The Daily Beast

AirAsia has now been grounded on this route by the Indonesians.

From The Daily Beast

And increasingly smart navigation aids in the cockpit brought far greater precision and efficiency to route planning.

From The Daily Beast

Otis, who tells me he was called “Saladin” on the inside, has taken an almost tragically circuitous route in getting here.

From The Daily Beast

After a hit, they would adjust the search to the most likely route from there.

From The Daily Beast

I do not think the average number of passengers on a corresponding route in our country could be so few as twenty.

From Project Gutenberg

Alice Arden, you little dream of the man and the route by which, possibly, deliverance is speeding to you.

From Project Gutenberg

Upon our return from this river Saint John, our route turned towards the country of the Armouchiquoys.

From Project Gutenberg

Mais, dpartans un peu de pense d'avec eux, comme nous fismes lors de presence, continuons nostre route et voyage.

From Project Gutenberg

This waterway was recently discovered, and by it there is a better route to Terrenate than was formerly followed.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• transmit