Etymologically
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railroad

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 16 October 2026 at 04:31. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • IPA: UK /ˈreɪl.rəʊd/, US /ˈreɪl.roʊd/[1]

Etymology

It is a compound, from English rail + road.[2][3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A road laid with rails for heavy wagons, in mining: 1757 in Etymonline, the OED and MWU.[2][5][3] The process itself seems to have been in use by the late 17th century.[2]

Semantic evolution

Application to passenger and freight trains dates from 1825;[2][5] in England the word was largely replaced by railway in this sense,[2] and it is now chiefly American, outside certain compounds.[4] Railroads, railway shares, are from 1848.[5] The verb meant to have a mania for building railways in 1847,[2] and to provide a country with railways in the early 19th century, in American use.[4] To convict someone quickly and perhaps unjustly, as fast as a train, is American English from 1873,[2] and to push something through hastily, as a bill through a legislature, followed.[6][4]

Timeline

  • 1757 – a road with rails, in mining.[2][5]
  • 1825 – a railway for trains.[2][5]
  • 1847 – the verb, railway mania.[2]
  • 1873 – to convict hastily.[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. (chiefly US) A track of parallel steel rails for trains; a railway.
  2. (chiefly US) A railway system with its track, stations and rolling stock, or the company that runs it.

Verb

  1. To push something through quickly, without proper discussion: railroad a bill through.
  2. To force someone into doing something, or convict them hastily and unfairly.

Word family

  • railroader
  • nonrailroad
  • prerailroad
  • prorailroad
  • railroad worm
  • underground railroad

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin