macadam

See also: Macadam and MacAdam

English

Alternative forms

• McAdam

Etymology

Named after Scottish engineer John Loudon McAdam (1756–1836), who invented the process of macadamization. Used for describing road surfaces originally constructed using the McAdam method, but now sometimes used for any road or street.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /məˈkædəm/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

macadam (countable and uncountable, plural macadams)

1. (uncountable) The surface of a road consisting of layers of crushed stone (usually tar-coated for modern traffic).
   • 1955 May, Rev. A. W. V. Mace, “An Irish Journey—1”, in Railway Magazine, page 304:

     This narrow-gauge line had suffered the same fate as that between Schull and Skibbereen, with the track taken up except where it runs through one of the town streets and is embedded in the macadam.

2. (US, dated, countable) Any road or street.

Derived terms

• macadamization
• macadamize
• tarmac
• tarmacadam

Translations

surface of a road

• Bulgarian: макадам (bg) m (makadam)
• Czech: makadam (cs) m
• Finnish: sepeli (fi), murske (fi)
• German: Makadam (de) m or n
• Hungarian: makadám (hu)
• Polish: makadam (pl) m
• Portuguese: macadame (pt) m
• Russian: ще́бень (ru) m (ščébenʹ)
• Scottish Gaelic: bìth f, teàrr f
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: макадам m

  Roman: makadam (sh) m

• Ukrainian: макадам m (makadam)

Verb

macadam (third-person singular simple present macadams, present participle macadaming or macadamming, simple past and past participle macadamed or macadammed)

1. (transitive) To cover or surface with macadam.

   Synonym: macadamize

Translations

cover or surface with macadam — see macadamize

See also

• asphalt

Further reading

• macadam on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

French

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

macadam m (plural macadams)

1. macadam

Further reading

• “macadam”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French macadam or German Makadam.

Noun

macadam n (plural macadamuri)

1. macadam (surface of a road)

Declension

Declension of macadam

	singular			plural
	indefinite	definite		indefinite	definite
nominative-accusative	macadam	macadamul		macadamuri	macadamurile
genitive-dative	macadam	macadamului		macadamuri	macadamurilor
vocative	macadamule			macadamurilor

Spanish

Noun

macadam m (plural macadams or macadam)

1. macadam

Further reading

• “macadam”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10