street
noun /striːt/
/striːt/
Idioms - (abbreviation St, st)a public road in a city or town that has houses and buildings on one side or both sides
- along/down/up the street I was just walking along the street when it happened.
- She lives just up the street here.
- across the street The bank is just across the street.
- in the street He is used to being recognized in the street.
- Workers took to the streets in protest.
- It's not safe to walk the streets at night.
- It's a medieval town, with narrow cobbled streets.
- a crowded/residential/quiet/deserted street
- 92nd Street
- 10 Downing Street
- You can find these shops on every street corner.
- The council promised better street lighting and cleaner streets.
- a street map/plan of York
- My office is at street level (= on the ground floor).
More About roadsroadsRoads and streetssee also backstreet, cross street, high street, main street, side street, stop street- In a town or city, street is the most general word for a road with houses and buildings on one or both sides:
- a street map of London.
- Oxford Street
- Mile End Road.
- Other words used in the names of streets include: Circle, Court, Crescent, Drive, Hill and Way. Avenue suggests a wide street lined with trees. A lane is a narrow street between buildings or, in British English, a narrow country road.
- High street is used in British English, especially as a name, for the main street of a town, where most shops, banks, etc. are:
- the shoe shop in the High Street
- high street shops.
- British and American English use different words for the roads that connect towns and cities. Motorways, (for example, the M57) in British English, freeways, highways or interstates, (for example State Route 347, Interstate 94, the Long Island Expressway) in North American English, are large divided roads built for long-distance traffic to avoid towns.
- A ring road (British English)/an outer belt (North American English) is built around a city or town to reduce traffic in the centre. This can also be called a beltway in North American English, especially when it refers to the road around Washington D.C. A bypass passes around a town or city rather than through the centre.
Culture street namesstreet namesIn Britain, main roads outside towns and cities are known by numbers rather than names, although some roads that follow the line of former Roman roads have names, for example, the Fosse Way, which goes from Exeter in the southwest of England to Lincoln in the East Midlands. If a main road passes through a town, that part of it usually has a name, often that of the place which the road goes to, for example, London Road.The main shopping street in a town is often called High Street, or sometimes Market Street. Many streets take their name from a local feature or building. The most common include Bridge Street, Castle Street, Church Street, Mill Street and Station Road. Some names indicate the trade that was carried on in that area in the past. Examples are Candlemaker's Row, Cornmarket, Petticoat Lane and Sheep Street. Many streets laid out in the 19th century were named after famous people or events. These include Albert Street, Cromwell Road, Shakespeare Street, Wellington Street, Trafalgar Road and Waterloo Street. When housing estates are built, the names of the new roads in them are usually all on the same theme. Names of birds or animals are popular. Others are based on the old names for the fields that the houses were built on, for example Tenacres Road, The Slade and Meadow Walk. The name of a road is written on signs at each end of it.Some streets have become so closely identified with people of a particular profession that the street name itself is immediately associated with them. In London, Harley Street has been associated with private doctors and Fleet Street with newspapers.In the US main roads such as interstates and highways are known by numbers. Most towns and cities are laid out on a grid pattern and have long streets with avenues crossing them. Each has a number, for example, 7th Avenue, 42nd Street. The roads are often straight and have square blocks of buildings between them. This makes it easier to find an address and also helps people to judge distance. In Manhattan, for example, Tiffany's is described as being at East 57th Street and Fifth Avenue, which means it is on the corner of those two streets. The distance between West 90th Street and West 60th Street is 30 blocks.As well as having numbers, many streets are named after people, places, local features, history and nature. In Manhattan there is Washington Street, Lexington Avenue, Liberty Street, Church Street and Cedar Street. Some streets are named after the town to which they lead. Streets called Post Road are named because the mail used be delivered along that route. The most important street is often called Main Street. A suburb or subdivision (= group of houses built together in a section of a city) of a city may have streets with similar names. In a subdivision of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, all the names end in ‚wood‘, for example Balsawood Drive, Limewood Drive and Aspenwood Drive.Some roads are called boulevards, with Hollywood's Sunset Boulevard and Miami's Biscayne Boulevard among the best known. Avenues usually cross streets, as in New York, but often the word is chosen as part of a name for no particular reason. Avenue and boulevard once indicated roads with trees along each side, but few have trees today. A road in the US is usually found outside cities, though Chicago uses the name for some central streets.Some street names have particular associations: Grant Avenue in San Francisco is associated with Chinatown, Beale Street in Memphis with the blues, and Bourbon Street in New Orleans with jazz. In New York Wall Street is associated with the financial world, Madison Avenue with advertising and Broadway with theatres.Extra ExamplesTopics Transport by car or lorrya1, Buildingsa1- A couple were arguing out in the street.
- Crowds thronged the streets.
- Dead bodies littered the streets.
- Gangs roamed the streets at night.
- He could see her across the street.
- He grew up on the mean streets of one of the city's toughest areas.
- He suffered extensive injuries in a street attack.
- He wandered through the streets of Calcutta.
- He works at a small store on Main Street.
- I was living on 10th Street off Hudson.
- It really irritates me when people ride bicycles in pedestrian streets.
- Most local people support the idea of traffic-free streets.
- Most street names were changed under the new regime.
- Mozart is remembered by a street named after him.
- Police were told to clear the streets of drug dealers before the Olympics.
- She parks her car in the street.
- She stepped out into the street.
- Spectators lined the streets.
- Take the second street on the right after the bridge.
- The police have been patrolling the streets in this area since the murder.
- The shops had no street numbers on.
- The streets are teeming with traffic.
- The streets were packed with people shopping.
- There were photographers outside the street door so she used a back entrance.
- There's a chemist's just up the street.
- They walked along the street.
- Thousands of people were out on the streets for the protest.
- We live in Barker Street.
- You've taken the wrong street.
- a club just off William Street
- a painting of a typical Parisian street scene
- a plan to keep teenagers off the streets
- people dealing drugs on the street
- street fighting between police and stone-throwing youths
- streets lined with cafes
- the dense street pattern of the old town
- the town's main shopping street
- Do you have a street plan of the town?
- I met him by chance in the street.
- I spotted her on the other side of the street.
- I walked up the street as far as the post office.
- The streets are very busy at this time of year.
- narrow winding streets
- Many people just walk into the gallery off the street.
- She looked out over the busy city streets.
- a one-way street
- a street sign
- She crossed the street to avoid him.
- It was time to take the political struggle onto the streets (= by protesting in large groups in the streets of a city).
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective- broad
- wide
- narrow
- …
- go along
- go down
- go up
- …
- go
- lead
- run
- …
- corner
- map
- plan
- …
- across a/the street
- along a/the street
- down a/the street
- …
- above street level
- at street level
- below street level
- …
- [singular] the ideas and opinions of ordinary people, especially people who live in cities, which are considered important
- The feeling I get from the street is that we have a good chance of winning this election.
- The word on the street is that it's not going to happen.
- Opinion on the street was divided.
see also Civvy Street, Grub Street
Word OriginOld English strǣt, of West Germanic origin, from late Latin strāta (via) ‘paved (way)’, feminine past participle of sternere ‘lay down’.
Idioms
the man (and/or woman) in the street
- an average or ordinary person, either male or female
- Politicians often don't understand the views of the man in the street.
- What really matters to the man and woman in the street?
on easy street
- (old-fashioned, informal) enjoying a comfortable way of life with plenty of money
(out) on/onto the streets/street
- (informal) without a home; outside, not in a house or other building
- the problems of young people living on the streets
- If it had been left to me I would have put him out on the street long ago.
- She was thrown onto the street.
on/walking the streets
- working as a prostitute
streets ahead (of somebody/something)
- (British English, informal) much better or more advanced than somebody/something else
- a country that is streets ahead in the control of environmental pollution
- Beth is streets ahead of all the other students in her year.
the streets are paved with gold
- (saying) used to say that it seems easy to make money in a place
(right) up your street (especially British English)
(North American English usually (right) up your alley)
- (informal) very suitable for you because it is something that you know a lot about or are very interested in
- This job seems right up your street.