Meaning & use
footway
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Meaning
nouncountableformal
A path or paved strip set aside for people on foot, often running beside a road.
Grammar: Countable: a footway beside the road; two footways meet at the bridge.
Patterns
- a footway beside something
- a footway along something
The council repaired the footway beside the main road.
A narrow footway runs along the river for two miles.
Cyclists are not allowed on the footway in front of the school.
Word forms
| plural | footways |
|---|
Common combinations
- public footway
- There is a public footway across the field.
- repair the footway
- Workers will repair the footway next week.
- footway closure
- A footway closure forced pedestrians onto the road.
- footway width
- The footway width must allow wheelchairs to pass.
- along the footway
- Dog walkers strolled along the footway.
Synonyms and how they differ
- pavement
- Pavement is the everyday British term, while footway is the more official word used in planning and law.
- sidewalk
- Sidewalk is the American word for a path beside a road and is much more common in speech.
- footpath
- Footpath can also be a path through countryside away from roads, which footway usually is not.
- walkway
- Walkway is wider and can mean a raised or covered route inside buildings or between them.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: footway or footpath?
footway vs footpath
A footpath is often a rural right of way across land, while a footway is normally the pedestrian strip beside a road.
Practice
Traffic engineers drew up plans to widen the ___ so that more pedestrians could walk safely beside the road.
Choose one answer.
A path for people on foot beside a road is a footway. A carriageway is the part used by vehicles, which is tempting but is the opposite.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “footway”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.