path
pronunciation
How to pronounce path in British English:
UK [pɑːθ]
How to pronounce path in American English:
US [pæθ]
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- Noun:
- a course of conduct
- a way especially designed for a particular use
- an established line of travel or access
- a line or route along which something travels or moves
Word Origin
- path
- path: [OE] Path is a West Germanic word of uncertain ultimate origin. Its cousins German pfad and Dutch pad point back to a prehistoric West Germanic ancestor *patha, but no one is too sure where this came from (one possibility is that it was borrowed somehow from Greek pátos ‘path’). The verb pad ‘tread, walk’ and the -pad of footpad come from the same source.=> pad
- path (n.)
- Old English paþ, pæþ "path, track," from West Germanic *patha- (cognates: Old Frisian path, Middle Dutch pat, Dutch pad, Old High German pfad, German Pfad "path"), of uncertain origin. The original initial -p- in a Germanic word is an etymological puzzle. Don Ringe ("From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic," Oxford 2006) describes it as "An obvious loan from Iranian ..., clearly borrowed after Grimmâs Law had run its course." Watkins says the word is "probably borrowed (? via Scythian) from Iranian *path-," from PIE root *pent- "to tread, go, pass" (source of Avestan patha "way;" see find (v.)), but this is too much of a stretch for OED and others. In Scotland and Northern England, commonly a steep ascent of a hill or in a road.
Example
- 1. The uncertainty of the uncharted path ahead can be daunting .
- 2. The yuan 's moves will likely be consequences of the path china chooses .
- 3. This path , he argues , is bound for failure . "
- 4. That would be a dangerous path .
- 5. This is not a path to citizenship .