“streets” is a form of
street
UK /stɹiːt/ · US /stɹit/ noun, adjective, verb, proper noun
Forms streets streeting streeted streete streat streate
- noun A paved part of road, usually in a village or a town. “Walk down the street until you see a hotel on the right.”
- noun A road as above, but including the sidewalks (pavements) and buildings. “I live on the street down from Joyce Avenue.”
- noun (specifically, US, Canada) The roads that run perpendicular to avenues in a grid layout.
- noun The people who live in such a road, as a neighborhood.
- noun 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.
- noun An illicit or contraband source, especially of drugs. “I got some pot cheap on the street.”
- noun (attributive) Living in the streets. “a street cat”
- noun (slang, uncountable) Streetwise slang.
- adjective (slang) Having street cred; conforming to modern urban trends.
- verb To build or equip with streets.
- verb To eject; to throw onto the streets.
- verb (sports, by extension) To heavily defeat.
- verb To go on sale.
- verb (Japanese Mormonism) To proselytize in public.
- proper noun (countable) A surname.
- proper noun A hamlet in Orton parish, Westmorland and Furness, Cumbria (OS grid ref NY6208).
- proper noun A small village in Branscombe parish, East Devon district, Devon (OS grid ref SY1888).
- proper noun A hamlet in Nether Wyresdale parish, Wyre district, Lancashire (OS grid ref SD5252).
- proper noun A hamlet in Glaisdale parish, North Yorkshire (OS grid ref NZ7304).
- proper noun A large village and civil parish in Somerset, previously in Mendip district (OS grid ref ST4836).
Synonyms
way Streete
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English strete, from Anglian Old English strēt (“street”, compare West Saxon Old English 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”). Doublet of estrade and stratum.
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.
Cognate with Scots stret, strete, streit (“street”), North Frisian Straat, stroot, struat (“street”) (North Frisian forms are borrowed from Middle Low German strâte), Saterland Frisian Sträite (“street”), West Frisian strjitte (“street”), Bavarian Stråßn (“street”), Dutch straat (“street”) (see doublet straat), German Strasse, Straße (“street”), German Low German Straat, Straote (“street”), Limburgish sjtraot, straot (“street”), Luxembourgish Strooss (“street”), Mòcheno stros (“street”), Vilamovian śtrös, štrȫs (“street”), Yiddish שטראָז (shtroz, “street”), Danish stræde (“alley, lane, narrow street”), Faroese and Icelandic stræti (“street”), Norwegian Bokmål strede (“narrow street”), Swedish stråt (“path, road, route; way, course”) (Scandinavian forms are borrowed from Old English), Portuguese and Spanish estrada (“road”), Italian strada (“road, street”). Related to Old English strēowian, strewian (“to strew, scatter”), Latin sternō, Ancient Greek στορνύναι (stornúnai). More at strew.
Webster’s 1913
- noun Originally, a paved way or road; a public highway; now commonly, a thoroughfare in a city or village, bordered by dwellings or business houses.
Etymology [OE. strete, AS. str, fr. L. strata (sc. via) a paved way, properly fem. p.p. of sternere, stratum, to spread; akin to E. strew. See Strew, and cf. Stratum, Stray, v. & a.]
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “street”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details