馬路

See also: 马路

Chinese

		horse; surname	road; path; way
trad. (馬路)		馬	路
simp. (马路)		马	路

Etymology

Attested in Zuo Zhuan [4th century BC], meaning “wide road used for horses”. How this came to be used as a general term for “paved road; street” is debated. Common theories include:

• A natural semantic evolution (± modern repurposing) of the literary Chinese term.
• A phono-semantic matching of English macadam (the modern method of road construction) + 路 (“road”), originally used in Shanghainese.

Noun

(deprecated template usage) 馬路

1. (literary, archaic) wide road used for horses and horse-drawn carriages
2. (modern usage) wide and flat road for the passage of vehicles; paved road; (by extension) road; street (Classifier: 條／条 m)

   過馬路／过马路  ―  guò mǎlù  ―  to cross the road

   馬路中央／马路中央  ―  mǎlù zhōngyāng  ―  the middle of the road

See also

• 道路 (dàolù)
• 街 (jiē)

(deprecated template usage)