Road, n.
Etymology: [AS. rad a riding, that on which one rides or travels, a road, fr. ridan to ride. See Ride, and cf. Raid.]
1. A journey, or stage of a journey. [Obs.] With easy roads he came to Leicester. Shak.
2. An inroad; an invasion; a raid. [Obs.] Spenser.
3. A place where one may ride; an open way or public passage for vehicles, persons, and animals; a track for travel, forming a means of communication between one city, town, or place, and another. The most villainous house in all the London road. Shak.
Note: The word is generally applied to highways, and as a generic term it includes highway, street, and lane.
4 more senses
4. Etym: [Possibly akin to Icel. reithi the rigging of a ship, E. ready.]
A place where ships may ride at anchor at some distance from the shore; a roadstead; -- often in the plural; as, Hampton Roads. Shak.
Now strike your saile, ye jolly mariners, For we be come unto a quiet rode [road]. Spenser. On, or Upon, the road, traveling or passing over a road; coming or going; on the way. My hat and wig will soon be here, They are upon the road. Cowper. -- Road agent, a highwayman, especially on the stage routes of the unsettled western parts of the United States; -- a humorous euphemism. [Western U.S.] The highway robber -- road agent he is quaintly called. The century. -- Road book, a quidebook in respect to roads and distances. -- Road metal, the broken, stone used in macadamizing roads. -- Road roller, a heavy roller, or combinations of rollers, for making earth, macadam, or concrete roads smooth and compact. -- often driven by steam. -- Road runner (Zoöl.), the chaparral cock. -- Road steamer, a locomotive engine adapted to running on common roads. -- To go on the road, to engage in the business of a commercial traveler. [Colloq.] -- To take the road, to begin or engage in traveling. -- To take to the road, to engage in robbery upon the highways.
Syn. -- Way; highway; street; lane; pathway; route; passage; course. See Way.
Shades of meaning
Fernald has no entry of its own for road; he lists it under way.
Where he writes about it:
A road (originally a rideway) is a prepared way for traveling with horses or vehicles, always the latter unless the contrary is expressly stated; a way suitable to be traversed only by foot-passengers or by animals is called a path, bridle-path, or track; as, the roads in that country are mere bridle-paths. — from way
A road may be private; a highway or highroad is public, highway being a specific name for a road legally set apart for the use of the public forever; a highway may be over water as well as over land. — from way
A street is in some center of habitation, as a city, town, or village; when it passes between rows of dwellings the country road becomes the village street. — from way
Track is a word of wide signification; we speak of a goat-track on a mountain-side, a railroad-track, a race-track, the track of a comet; on a traveled road the line worn by regular passing of hoofs and wheels in either direction is called the track. — from way
A thoroughfare is a way through; a road or street temporarily or permanently closed at any point ceases for such time to be a thoroughfare. — from way