Thoroughfare Meaning
/ˈθʌɹəfɛː/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
nounA passage; a way through.
nounA road open at both ends or connecting one area with another; a highway or main street.
Sentence Examples
This is not a thoroughfare.
No thoroughfare to the beach.
The busy avenue is a main thoroughfare through the city.
CEFR Practice Quiz
Broadway is a major ____ in New York City, filled with cars and pedestrians.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The main ____ of the city was very busy this morning with thousands of people commuting to their nearby offices today.
Word Origin & History
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”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"“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:
"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 not suffer the firemen to play upon the flames."
— 1841, Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge:
"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. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London."
— 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
Broadway is a major ____ in New York City, filled with cars and pedestrians.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The main ____ of the city was very busy this morning with thousands of people commuting to their nearby offices today.