Meaning & use
sharrow
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountabletechnical
A road marking of two arrowheads with a bicycle symbol, showing that cyclists and drivers share the lane.
Grammar: Countable, so you can say a sharrow or sharrows: The street has new sharrows.
Patterns
- a sharrow on a road
- paint sharrows
- a street with sharrows
The city painted sharrows along the narrow street to remind drivers to watch for bikes.
A sharrow does not give cyclists their own lane; it just marks a shared space.
Some drivers ignore sharrows because they do not know what the symbol means.
Word forms
| plural | sharrows |
|---|
Common combinations
- paint sharrows
- Workers painted sharrows on the road last week.
- sharrows on the road
- There are sharrows on the road near the school.
- a shared-lane marking
- A sharrow is also called a shared-lane marking.
- a street with sharrows
- Cyclists feel safer on a street with sharrows.
Synonyms and how they differ
- shared-lane marking
- This is the formal term used in official documents; sharrow is the informal everyday name.
Commonly confused: sharrow or arrow?
sharrow vs arrow
An arrow is any pointed sign showing direction; a sharrow is a specific road marking for cyclists and drivers.
Practice
What does a sharrow on a road tell you?
Choose one answer.
A sharrow marks a lane shared by bikes and cars. It does not ban cars or send cyclists off the road, and it has nothing to do with shops.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “sharrow”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.