macadam

• McAdam

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.

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

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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.

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

• asphalt

• macadam on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

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macadam m (plural macadams)

1. macadam

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

Borrowed from French macadam or German Makadam.

macadam n (plural macadamuri)

1. macadam (surface of a road)

macadam m (plural macadams or macadam)

1. macadam

• “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], 10 December 2024