Lane
name, noun, slang ·Common ·Middle school level
Definitions
- 1 A road, street, or similar thoroughfare.
"Penny Lane"
- 2 a narrow way or road wordnet
- 3 A narrow passageway between fences, walls, hedges or trees.
"There's a shortcut to the shops through this leafy lane."
- 4 a well-defined track or path; for e.g. swimmers or lines of traffic wordnet
- 5 A narrow road, as in the country.
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- 6 A lengthwise division of roadway intended for a single line of vehicles.
"Drivers should overtake in the outside lane"
- 7 A similar division of a racetrack to keep runners apart.
"There are eight lanes on an Olympic running track."
- 8 A similar division of a swimming pool using lines of coloured floats to keep swimmers apart.
"a swimming lane"
- 9 Any of a number of parallel tracks or passages.
"the checkout lanes in a supermarket"
- 10 A course designated for ships or aircraft.
"shipping lane"
- 11 An elongated wooden strip of floor along which a bowling ball is rolled.
"We booked a couple of lanes at the bowling alley."
- 12 An empty space in the tableau, formed by the removal of an entire row of cards.
- 13 Any of the parallel slots in which values can be stored in a SIMD architecture.
- 14 In MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) games, a particular path on the map that may be traversed by enemy characters.
- 15 The home stretch.
"And it's Uncle Mo in front by two as they come to the top of the lane."
- 1 A topographic surname from Middle English for someone who lived in a lane.
- 2 A surname from Irish [in turn originating as a patronymic] anglicised from various Irish surnames.
- 3 A male given name transferred from the surname.
- 4 A female given name.
- 5 A number of places in the United States:; An unincorporated community in Kootenai County, Idaho.
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- 6 A number of places in the United States:; An unincorporated community in DeWitt County, Illinois.
- 7 A number of places in the United States:; A minor city in Franklin County, Kansas.
- 8 A number of places in the United States:; An unincorporated community in Douglas County, Nebraska, taken from the surname.
- 9 A number of places in the United States:; A census-designated place in Atoka County, Oklahoma.
- 10 A number of places in the United States:; A town in Williamsburg County, South Carolina.
- 11 A number of places in the United States:; A town in Jerauld County, South Dakota.
- 12 A hamlet in Colan parish, Cornwall, England (OS grid ref SW8260).
- 13 A hamlet near Holme, Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, West Yorkshire, England (OS grid ref SE1005).
- 14 The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. UK, informal
"It was a gala night at the Lane, with Charles Mathews coming over from Covent Garden […]"
Example
More examples"The rightmost lane is now under construction."
Etymology
From Middle English lane, lone, from Old English lanu (“a lane, alley, avenue”), from Proto-West Germanic *lanu, from Proto-Germanic *lanō (“lane, passageway”). Cognate with Scots lone (“cattle-track, by-road”), West Frisian leane, loane (“a walkway, avenue”), Dutch laan (“alley, avenue”), German Low German Lane, Laan (“lane”), Swedish lån (“covered walkway encircling a house”), Icelandic lön (“a row of houses”).
As an English surname, from lane; as an Irish surname, from several origins, including Laighin. See Lane.
Related phrases
More for "lane"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.