thoroughfare
/ˈθəɹ.ə.fɛɹ/UK/ˈθʌɹəfɛː/
thoroughfare noun: a passage; a way through.
Noun
thoroughfare (countable and uncountable, plural thoroughfares)
- A passage; a way through.
- “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’?”1961, Frederic Morton, The Rothschilds, page 173
- In the scullery Smiley had once more checked his thoroughfare, shoved some deck-chairs aside, and pinned a string to the mangle to guide him because he saw badly in the dark.1974, John Le Carré, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
- A road open at both ends or connecting one area with another; a highway or main street.
- 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; […].1819, Washington Irving, The Sketch Book, Roscoe
- a dozen houses were quickly blazing, including those of Sir John Fielding and two other justices, and four in Holborn – one of the greatest thoroughfares in London – which were all burning at the same time, and burned until they went out of themselves, for the people cut the engine hose, and would...1841, Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge
- The act of going through; passage; travel, transit.
- The sign leading to the other carriage reads: No thoroughfare.
- and made one realm, / Hell and this world, one realm, one continent / Of easy thorough-fare.1667, John Milton, “Book IX”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...
- An unobstructed waterway allowing passage for ships.
thoroughfare meaning in Urdu, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada
thoroughfare in Urdu
- رہگزر
thoroughfare in Bengali
- প্রধান সড়ক, গমনের পথ
thoroughfare in Malayalam
- തെരുവീഥി
thoroughfare in Kannada
- ಹಾದಿ, ಜನಮಾರ್ಗ, ಸಾರ್ವಜನಿಕ ರಸ್ತೆ
More languagesFewer languages
- thoroughfare in Arabic
- شَارِع رَئِيسِيّ šāriʕ raʔīsiyy
- thoroughfare in Vietnamese
- lối đi, đường lớn, đường phố lớn, đường thuỷ
Examples of thoroughfare in a sentence
- With some of it on the south and more of it on the north of the great main thoroughfare that connects Aldgate and the East India Docks, St.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
- East [Street] and West Street form a single thoroughfare running as a backbone through the village, flanked by neat, painted cottages of predominantly 18th-century brick.1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 220, about Hambledon, Hants:
- The thoroughfare of Oneroa village is lined with shops and galleries full of their work.2011 July 1, Stephen Phelan, The Guardian:
- But the town handed Trump a rare defeat last week when town commissioners voted unanimously not to rename the island’s main thoroughfare from Gulf of Mexico Drive to Gulf of America Drive.2025 October 27, Joshua Benton, “Nine months later, that body of water down south is still the “Gulf of Mexico” to news outlets”, in...
Forms of thoroughfare
| plural | thoroughfares |
|---|---|
| alternative form | thorofare |
| alternative form | throughfare |
| alternative form (obsolete) | thoroughfair |
| alternative form (obsolete) | thorowfair |
Origin of thoroughfare
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”).
Questions about thoroughfare
- What does thoroughfare mean?
- Thoroughfare means a passage; a way through.
- What is thoroughfare in Urdu?
- Thoroughfare in Urdu is رہگزر. See Thoroughfare meaning in Urdu.
- How do you use thoroughfare in a sentence?
- With some of it on the south and more of it on the north of the great main thoroughfare that connects Aldgate and the East India Docks, St.
- What part of speech is thoroughfare?
- Thoroughfare is a noun.
- How do you pronounce thoroughfare?
- Thoroughfare is pronounced /ˈθʌɹəfɛː/ (UK).
- What is the plural of thoroughfare?
- The plural of thoroughfare is thoroughfares.
Words near thoroughfare in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: thoroughfare (page history and authors); thoroughfare (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); thoroughfare (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); thoroughfare (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); thoroughfare (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-thoroughfare.ogg.
Cite this entry: “thoroughfare.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/thoroughfare. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.