road

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun An open, generally public way for the passage of vehicles, people, and animals.
• noun The surface of a road; a roadbed.
• noun A course or path.
• noun A railroad.
• noun Nautical A roadstead.
• idiom (down the road) In the future; at a later date.
• idiom (on the road) On tour, as a theatrical company.
• idiom (on the road) Traveling, especially as a salesperson.
• idiom (on the road) Wandering, as a vagabond.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The tour or route of a theatrical company. See on the road.
• noun A road over which logs are dragged, having heavy transverse skids, partially sunk in the ground, usually at intervals of about five feet.
• To furnish with a road or with roads.
• To follow the trail of by scent; track or pursue on foot, as game: said of dogs.
• To jostle (one) off the road by riding against him.
• noun A ride; journey; expedition.
• noun A hostile expedition; an incursion; an inroad; a raid. See raid.
• noun A public way for passage or travel; a strip of ground appropriated for travel, forming a line of communication between different places; a highway; hence, any similar passage for travel, public or private; by extension, a railroad or railway. See street.
• noun Hence Any means or way of approach or access; a course; a path.
• noun A place near the shore where vessels may anchor, differing from a harbor in not being sheltered. Also called roadstead.
• noun The regulations embodied in a code of rules for the safe handling of vessels meeting or passing each other.
• noun Synonyms Street, Passage, etc. (see way), lane, route, course, thoroughfare.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun obsolete A journey, or stage of a journey.
• noun obsolete An inroad; an invasion; a raid.
• noun 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.
• noun A place where ships may ride at anchor at some distance from the shore; a roadstead; -- often in the plural.
• noun traveling or passing over a road; coming or going; traveling; on the way.
• noun [Western U.S.] a highwayman, especially on the stage routes of the unsettled western parts of the United States; -- a humorous euphemism.
• noun a guidebook in respect to roads and distances.
• noun See roadkill in the vocabulary.
• noun the broken, stone used in macadamizing roads.
• noun a heavy roller, or combinations of rollers, for making earth, macadam, or concrete roads smooth and compact.
• noun (Zoöl.) the chaparral cock.
• noun a locomotive engine adapted to running on common roads.
• noun [Colloq.] to engage in the business of a commercial traveler.
• noun to begin or engage in traveling.
• noun to engage in robbery upon the highways.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a way or means to achieve something
• noun an open way (generally public) for travel or transportation