path

A trail for the use of, or worn by, pedestrians.

Noun

  1. A trail for the use of, or worn by, pedestrians.
    • Yet ere to to-morrow's ſun ſhall ſhew his head, / The dewy paths of meadows we will tread, / For crowns and chaplets to adorn thy head. - a. 1701 (date written), John Dryden, “The Epithalamium of Helen and Menelaus....
    • I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew,...
  2. A course taken.
    • the path of a meteor, of a caravan, or of a storm
    • Just before Warwick reached Liberty Point, a young woman came down Front Street from the direction of the market-house. When their paths converged, Warwick kept on down Front Street behind her, it having been already...
  3. A metaphorical course or route; progress.
    • ⁠But thou and I have shaken hands, ⁠Till growing winters lay me low; ⁠My paths are in the fields I know, And thine in undiscover’d lands. - 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XXXIX”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward...
    • As I explored the possibility of a library science path, having previously been employed in libraries during my school career and afterwards, I decided that I needed to actually experience work in a library setting full...
  4. A method or direction of proceeding.
    • All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth. - 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Psalms 25:10:
    • The paths of glory lead but to the grave. - 1750 June 12 (date written; published 1751), T[homas] Gray, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”, in Designs by Mr. R[ichard] Bentley, for Six Poems by Mr. T. Gray, London:...
  5. A Pagan tradition, for example witchcraft, Wicca, druidism, Heathenry.
  6. A human-readable specification for a location within a hierarchical or tree-like structure, such as a file system or as part of a URL.
    • Use the network path \\Marketing\Files to find the documents you need.
  7. A sequence of vertices from one vertex to another using the arcs (edges). A path does not visit the same vertex more than once (unless it is a closed path, where only the first and the last vertex are the same).
  8. A continuous map f from the unit interval I=[0,1] to a topological space X.
  9. A slot available for allocation to a railway train over a given route in between other trains.
    • "Permissive" working allows more than one train to be in a block section at one time but trains must be run at low speed in order to stop on sight behind the train in front. Such working is often authorised to allow...
    • ... while the planned hourly fast 'Connect' service from Middlesbrough to Newcastle has been postponed indefinitely due to problems in finding paths for it on the East Coast main line. - 2019 October, James Abbott, “Esk...
    • Echoing McNaughton's comments in 2009, it adds: "The WCML has exhausted its available train paths and no extra services could be run without further significant investment to enhance current infrastructure or build a...

Origin

From Middle English path, peth, from Old English pæþ (“path, track”), from Proto-West Germanic *paþ, from Proto-Germanic *paþaz (“path”). The Proto-Germanic term is possibly borrowed from Iranian, from Proto-Iranian *pántaHs, from Proto-Indo-Iranian *pántaHs, from Proto-Indo-European *póntoh₁s, from the root *pent- (“to pass”), but this is disputed. Cognates Cognate with Saterland Frisian Paad, Pad (“path”), West Frisian paad (“path”), Dutch pad (“path”), German Pfad (“path”), German Low German Padd (“path”), Luxembourgish Pad (“path”). Indo-Iranian cognates could be Avestan 𐬞𐬀𐬧𐬙𐬃 (paṇtā̊, “way”), Old Persian 𐎱𐎰 (p-θ /⁠paθi⁠/), Hindi पथ (path), Sanskrit पन्था (panthā, “path”). See also English find. Doublet of panth.

Forms

paths

Synonyms

track trail

Hypernyms

absolute path bang path base path bicycle path bike path boom path bridle path classpath click path critical path cross paths cycle path data path desire path directed path eightfold path Eulerian path flare path flight path footpath forced path garden path glide path Hamiltonian path

Derived

airpath basepath bridlepath bridle-path build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door by-path cart path cess path cowpath cross someone's path cyberpath drag path edgepath eigenpath flarepath flowpath garden-path garden path sentence garden-path sentence halterpath heelpath hotpath hyperpath keypath

Noun medicine, sciences

  1. Pathology.

Origin

Shortening.

Verb

  1. To make a path in, or on (something), or for (someone).
    • His ghoſtly counſells onely doe aduiſe, / The meanes hovv Langlies progenie may riſe, / Pathing young Henries vnaduiſed vvaies, / A Duke of Yorke from Cambridge houſe to raiſe, […] - 1597, Michaell [i.e., Michael]...
  2. To navigate through a file system directory tree (to a desired file or folder).
    • Next, you need to path to the location of the executable and run it from there.
  3. To pathfind.

Forms

paths pathing pathed