sidewalk

Etymology

It is formed from English side + walk.^[2][3][4][5] Etymonline takes the first part as the adjective, the OED and the Shorter Oxford as the noun.^[3][2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A turn or short excursion: 1598, in Florio's A Worlde of Wordes; this sense is rare and obsolete.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

From 1605, in the records of the burgh of Paisley, it meant a minor path running beside a main one, a sense now rare;^[2] the OED's first edition dated it to 1667,^[6] and Dictionary.com dates the word to 1660–70.^[5] The sense of a paved footpath along a street, usually raised a little above the road, is recorded from 1739, in an account of the piers of Westminster Bridge,^[2][7] while Etymonline dates it to 1721.^[3] It was later replaced in Britain by pavement and footway and is now chiefly North American;^[2][4][8] Etymonline notes that it was remarked on in England as an Americanism by 1902.^[3] Hendrickson finds it in American use from at least 1851, with side passage as early as 1790.^[8] A verb, to provide with sidewalks, appears in 1861 in a San Francisco newspaper.^[2] Compounds include sidewalk superintendent, a humorous American name for an onlooker who gives advice at building sites,^[4] which Barry Popik traces to John D. Rockefeller Jr.'s "Sidewalk Superintendents' Club", started in 1938 at Rockefeller Center,^[9] and the American slang sidewalk snail, a police officer, recorded from 1930.^[10]

Timeline

• 1598 – a turn, a short excursion (obsolete).^[2][4]
• 1605 – a minor path beside a main one.^[2]
• 1721 – a footpath along a street, according to Etymonline.^[3]
• 1739 – a paved footpath along a street, in the OED and Merriam-Webster.^[2][7]
• 1861 – verb, to provide with sidewalks.^[2]
• 1902 – noted in England as an Americanism.^[3]
• 1930 – American slang sidewalk snail, a police officer.^[10]
• 1938 – the Sidewalk Superintendents' Club at Rockefeller Center.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. (US, Canada) A paved path for pedestrians along the side of a street, usually a little higher than the road, called a pavement in Britain: She waited on the sidewalk outside the bank.^{[11][7][2][12]}
2. (rare) A minor path running beside a main one.^[2][4]

Verb

1. To provide a street or town with sidewalks.^[2]

Word family

• sidewalk artist
• sidewalk superintendent

Related words

• side
• walk

Usage notes

The word is American and Canadian.^[11] British English uses pavement, and Australian and New Zealand English footpath.^[11][8]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c Hendrickson, Robert (2008), The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, 4th ed., New York: Facts on File
9. ^ a b Popik, Barry, The Big Apple, barrypopik.com, p. "Sidewalk Superintendent", 16 March 2005
10. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
11. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin