Word.ws English Dictionary

drive-thru

drive-thru is the alternative spelling of drive-through.

Meaning of drive-through

Adjective

drive-through (not comparable)

  1. Of an establishment, providing service to occupants of automobiles while they are in their still-running vehicle, especially when the vehicle does not park in a parking space and the goods received are not consumed until the vehicle vacates the lane.
    • I switched banks so that I could use a drive-through branch near my home.
  2. Of a feature of such an establishment (especially a window), adapted to provide such service.
    • The restaurant’s drive-through window had a turntable of bulletproof glass designed to allow transactions while preventing robberies.

See all 4 meanings of drive-through

Forms of drive-thru

pluraldrive-thrus

Words formed from drive-thru

Questions about drive-thru

What is drive-thru the alternative spelling of?
Drive-thru is the alternative spelling of drive-through.

Words near drive-thru in the dictionary

  1. drive-through penalties
  2. drive-through penalty
  3. drive-through restaurant
  4. drive-through restaurants
  5. drive-throughs
  6. drive-thru
  7. drive-thrus
  8. drive-time
  9. drive-volley
  10. drive-volleys
  11. driveability

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: drive-thru (page history and authors); drive-through (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “drive-thru.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/drive-thru. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.