McAdam

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

Anglicised from a Scottish Gaelic surname meaning "son of Adam", equivalent to Mc- +‎ Adam.

Proper noun

McAdam

A Scottish surname from Scottish Gaelic.

Derived terms

macadam

Noun

McAdam (uncountable)

Alternative spelling of macadam.
- 1834 August 29, Benjamin Harwood, Harwood Diaries, volume [10] (Jan. 14, 1833, to Oct. 18, 1834), [Stratford, Conn.]: [William F. Allen], published [1992], →OCLC, page 244:
  In some places the McAdam was cut through a hill, while in others it crossed a valley - the surface of the road being from 12 to 15 & sometimes more feet above the old ground.
- 1874, Amzi Dodd, quotee, “Schumm vs. Seymour and others”, in Charles Ewing Green, reporter, Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in […] New Jersey (New Jersey Equity Reports; XXIV), volume IX, Trenton, N.J.: W. S. & E. W. Sharp, […], →OCLC, page 146:
  The street was to be graded, its sidewalks curbed and flagged, and the road-bed covered with McAdam.
- 1883 December 31, “Maintenance of Cast-Iron Pipe”, in E[dmund] C[ogswell] Converse, compiler, Facts About Pipe, 3rd edition, New York, N.Y.: National Tube Works Company, published 1895, →OCLC, page 432:
  On St. Martin Street 3 laborers and a pipe-layer were for 5 days each digging an excavation about 100 feet long (where the McAdam was very thick and, of course, hard frozen) to find a leak in the main pipe, and the appearance of the leak proved to be about 100 feet from where the leak really was, and then the main pipe was found to be broken across.
- 2003, Jack Bacon, “About the Future”, in My Stepdaughter’s Watch: A Forecast of Technology, Society, and the Coming Generation, Houston, Tex.: Normandy House Publishers, →ISBN, part I (The Art & Act of Thinking), page 47:
  Leonardo Da Vinci drew a comprehensive sketch of a bicycle three hundred years before it was re-invented and actually placed in the hands of consumers. Imagine where we would be if the citizens of the early Renaissance had had this invention! (First, they’d need to pave all the roads with a brick or McAdam surface, and invent rubber for the tires.)