street

English Online Dictionary. What means street‎? What does street mean?

English

Alternative forms

• streete (obsolete), streat (obsolete), streate (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English strete, from Anglian Old English strēt (“street”) (cognate West Saxon form strǣt) from Proto-West Germanic *strātu (“street”), an early borrowing from Late Latin (via) strāta (“paved (road)”), from Latin strātus, past participle of sternō (“stretch out, spread, bestrew with, cover, pave”), from Proto-Indo-European *sterh₃- (“to stretch out, extend, spread”).

Cognate with Scots stret, strete, streit (“street”), Saterland Frisian Sträite (“street”), West Frisian strjitte (“street”), Dutch straat (“street”) (see doublet straat), German Low German Straat (“street”), German Straße (“street”), Swedish stråt (“way, path”), Icelandic stræti (“street”) (Scandinavian forms are borrowed from Old English), Portuguese estrada (“road, way, drive”), Italian strada (“road, street”). Related to Old English strēowian, strewian (“to strew, scatter”), Latin sternō, Ancient Greek στορνύναι (stornýnai). More at strew.

The /aː/ vowel of the Latin form shifted by Anglo-Frisian brightening to /æː/ in West Saxon and /eː/ in Anglian Old English; these developed respectively to /ɛː/ and /eː/ in Middle English, /ɛː/ and /iː/ in Early Modern English, and finally /iː/ in Modern English by the Great Vowel Shift. The modern spelling reflects the Anglian form, as in sleep, greedy, sheep.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: strēt, IPA^(key): /stɹiːt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /stɹit/, [ˈʃt͡ʃɹitˀ]
• (African-American Vernacular) IPA^(key): [skɹitˀ], [ʃkɹitˀ]
• (Philadelphia) IPA^(key): [ʃtɹ̠̊iʔ]
• Rhymes: -iːt

Noun

street (plural streets)

1. A paved part of road, usually in a village or a town.

2. A road as above, but including the sidewalks (pavements) and buildings.

3. (specifically, US) The roads that run perpendicular to avenues in a grid layout.
4. Metonymic senses:
   1. The people who live in such a road, as a neighborhood.
   2. The people who spend a great deal of time on the street in urban areas, especially, the young, the poor, the unemployed, and those engaged in illegal activities.
   3. An illicit or contraband source, especially of drugs.

   4. (finance) Ellipsis of Wall Street.

5. (attributive) Living in the streets.

6. (slang, uncountable) Streetwise slang.
7. (slang, in the plural) People in general, as a source of information.

8. (figuratively) A great distance.
9. (poker slang) Each of the three opportunities that players have to bet, after the flop, turn and river.
10. (uncountable, sports) A style of skateboarding featuring typically urban obstacles.

Usage notes

• In the generic sense of "a road", the term is often used interchangeably with road, avenue, and other similar terms.

• In its narrow usage, street specifically means a paved route within a settlement (generally city or town), reflecting the etymology, while a road is a route between two settlements. Further, in many American cities laid out on a grid (notably Manhattan, New York City), streets are contrasted with avenues and run perpendicular to each other, with avenues frequently wider and longer than streets.

• In the sense of "a road", the prepositions in and on have distinct meanings when used with street, with "on the street" having idiomatic meaning in some dialects. In general for thoroughfares, "in" means "within the bounds of", while "on" means "on the surface of, especially traveling or lying", used relatively interchangeably ("don’t step in the street without looking", "I met her when walking on the street").

• By contrast, "living on the street" means to be living an insecure life, often homeless or a criminal. Further, to "hear something on the street" means to learn through rumor, also phrased as "word on the street is...".

Hyponyms

• See also Thesaurus:street

Derived terms

Verbs

Adjectives

Adverbs

Descendants

• Belizean Creole: schreet

Translations

Adjective

street (comparative more street, superlative most street)

1. (slang) Having street cred; conforming to modern urban trends.

Verb

street (third-person singular simple present streets, present participle streeting, simple past and past participle streeted)

1. To build or equip with streets.
2. To eject; to throw onto the streets.
3. (sports, by extension) To heavily defeat.
4. To go on sale.
5. (Japanese Mormonism) To proselytize in public.

Anagrams

• Setter, Tester, Teters, retest, setter, tester

Middle English

Noun

street

1. Alternative form of strete