Thoroughfare

noun

noun ·3 syllables ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A passage; a way through. countable, uncountable

    "“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’?”"

  2. 2
    a public road from one place to another wordnet
  3. 3
    A road open at both ends or connecting one area with another; a highway or main street. countable, uncountable

    "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; […]."

  4. 4
    The act of going through; passage; travel, transit. uncountable

    "The sign leading to the other carriage reads: No thoroughfare."

  5. 5
    An unobstructed waterway allowing passage for ships. countable, uncountable

Synonyms

All synonyms
alleyalleywayarterialarterial highwayarterial streetartery

Example

More examples

"Behind the palace, unobserved and free, / there stood a door, a secret thoroughfare / through Priam's halls. Here poor Andromache / while Priam's kingdom flourished and was fair, / to greet her husband's parents would repair / alone, or carrying with tendance fain / to Hector's father Hector's son and heir."

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”).

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