Asphalt

//ˈæʃfɑlt// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A sticky, black to brown and highly viscous liquid or semi-solid, composed almost entirely of bitumen with small mineral particles, that is present in most crude petroleums and in some natural deposits. countable, uncountable

    "The mining of asphalt was big business in this area in the early twentieth century."

  2. 2
    a dark bituminous substance found in natural beds and as residue from petroleum distillation; consists mainly of hydrocarbons wordnet
  3. 3
    Ellipsis of asphalt concrete, a hard ground covering used for roads and walkways. abbreviation, alt-of, countable, ellipsis, uncountable

    "Near-synonyms: tarmac, tarmacadam, blacktop, bitumen"

  4. 4
    mixed asphalt and crushed gravel or sand; used especially for paving but also for roofing wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    To pave with asphalt. transitive
  2. 2
    cover with tar or asphalt wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
bitumenblacktoptarmacbitumenalabasteramphibole

Example

More examples

"The street is paved with asphalt."

Etymology

From Late Latin asphaltum, from Ancient Greek ἄσφαλτος (ásphaltos, “asphalt, bitumen”). Displaced native Old English eorþteoru.

Related phrases

Syrian asphaltair-blown asphaltasphalt concreteasphalt emulsionasphalt jungleasphalt roadasphalt shingleasphalt concreteblack pavementblack roadconcrete likedriving on

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.