pavement

[peyv-muh nt] /ˈpeɪv mənt/
noun
1.
a paved road, highway, etc.
2.
a paved surface, ground covering, or floor.
3.
a material used for paving.
4.
Atlantic States and British, sidewalk.
Idioms
5.
pound the pavement, Informal. to walk the streets in order to accomplish something:
If you're going to find work you'd better start pounding the pavement.
Origin
1250-1300; Middle English < Old French < Latin pavīmentum. See pave, -ment
Related forms
pavemental
[peyv-men-tl] /peɪvˈmɛn tl/ (Show IPA), adjective
prepavement, noun
subpavement, noun
Examples from the web for pavement
  • For spurge growing in cracks in pavement, use a hand weeder.
  • Now, inviting layers of landscape and hardscape replace those impersonal expanses of wall and pavement.
  • The starter presses a hand trigger, and the paddles holding the cars in their ramps slap to the pavement.
  • The middle section would pour concrete in a never-ending flow, with the rear portion leveling the still soft pavement.
  • It goes across neighborhoods that don't even have pavement in the streets for cars.
  • pavement ends abruptly in water, bayous reach toward roadsides, and mossy crypts tumble into bays.
  • Communities are left to struggle with the consequences of too much pavement and too little oversight.
  • Bugs are less attracted to roadways with white hatch marks on the pavement.
  • We cover vast tracts of land with pavement where the previous life is completely extinguished.
  • Before pavement and machine road grading, it was always far cheaper and easier to use waterways for trade and travel.
British Dictionary definitions for pavement

pavement

/ˈpeɪvmənt/
noun
1.
a hard-surfaced path for pedestrians alongside and a little higher than a road US and Canadian word sidewalk
2.
a paved surface, esp one that is a thoroughfare
3.
the material used in paving
4.
(civil engineering) the hard layered structure that forms a road carriageway, airfield runway, vehicle park, or other paved areas
5.
(geology) a level area of exposed rock resembling a paved road See limestone pavement
Word Origin
C13: from Latin pavīmentum a hard floor, from pavīre to beat hard
Word Origin and History for pavement
n.

mid-13c., from Old French pavement "roadway, pathway; paving stone" (12c.) and directly from Latin pavimentum "hard floor, level surface beaten firm," from pavire (see pave).

pavement in the Bible

It was the custom of the Roman governors to erect their tribunals in open places, as the market-place, the circus, or even the highway. Pilate caused his seat of judgment to be set down in a place called "the Pavement" (John 19:13) i.e., a place paved with a mosaic of coloured stones. It was probably a place thus prepared in front of the "judgment hall." (See GABBATHA.)

Idioms and Phrases with pavement

pavement

see: pound the pavement