rue

Inherited from Old French rue, developed figuratively from Latin rūga (“wrinkle”).


boulevard

desctree

→ Russian: бульвар (bulʹvar)
→ Georgian: ბულვარი (bulvari)

→ Spanish: bulevar

→ Turkish: bulvar

Inherited from Middle French boulevard, bollevart, boulevars, bolevers, bollewerc (“rampart”), from Middle High German bolewerc, bolwerc (modern German Bollwerk) or Middle Dutch bolwerk (“bulwark, bastion”). The use for a road is due to the fact that boulevards (e.g. in Paris) were built on the sites of razed bulwarks.


avenue

desctree

→ Spanish: avenida
→ Portuguese: avenida
→ Tagalog: abenida

From Old French avenue, feminine past participle of avenir (“approach”), from Latin advenīre (“come to”), from ad (“to”) + veniō, venīre (“come”).

avenue (broad street, especially bordered with trees)


borne

Inherited from Old French bontie, bodne, from Medieval Latin (Merovingian) bodina, butina (“limit, boundary”), a Celtic/Transalpine Gaulish borrowing, from Proto-Celtic *bonnicca (“boundary”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰudʰmḗn (“bottom, base”), see also *bundos.

der

bollard such as those used to restrict automobiles off a pedestrian area

milestone such as those alongside a roadway


piste

→ Catalan: pista

→ Dutch: piste

→ English: piste

→ German: Piste

→ Greek: πίστα (písta)

→ Persian: پیست (pist)

→ Turkish: pist

Borrowed from Italian pista, variant of pesta (“footprint”).

Une piste automobile dans le désert.

piste cyclable

track (road or other similar beaten path)

piste d’atterrissage


feu

→ Karipúna Creole French: djife

Inherited from Old French fu, from Latin focus (“hearth”), which in Late and Vulgar Latin replaced the Classical Latin ignis (“fire”).

feux tricolores

feux de signalisation

« Si le feu est vert, je passe »
« Si le feu est rouge, je m’arrête »

1999, Patrick Lemaire, Psychologie cognitive:

‘If the light is green, I go.’
‘If the light is red, I stop.’


place

Haitian Creole: laplas (with definite article la)

→ English: laplas

→ Moroccan Arabic: بلاصة (blaṣa)

Inherited from Old French place, from Latin platea, from Ancient Greek πλατεῖα (plateîa).


bifurcation

From bifurquer + -tion, Medieval Latin bifurcus (“two-spronged”).

a bifurcation, where two roads etc. part or meet


route

From Old French rote, from Latin rupta [via].


cul-de-sac

→ English: cul-de-sac

dead end, cul-de-sac (a path that goes nowhere)


trottoir

Haitian Creole: twotwa

→ Alemannic German: Trottuar

→ Bulgarian: тротоар (trotoar)

desctree

→ Dutch: trottoir
→ Indonesian: trotoar
→ Petjo: tattowaar

→ Esperanto: trotuaro

→ Central Franconian: Trottwa, Trottewa

→ German: Trottoir

→ Georgian: ტროტუარი (ṭroṭuari)

→ Ladino: trotuar

→ Luxembourgish: Trottoir, Trëttoir

→ Polish: trotuar

→ Romanian: trotuar

→ Rhine Franconian: Trottwa, Trottewa

→ Russian: тротуа́р (trotuár)

→ Serbo-Croatian: trotòār, трото̀а̄р

→ Swedish: trottoar

→ Turkish: tretuvar

→ Yiddish: טראָטואַר (trotuar)

sidewalk, pavement, footpath (paved path located at the side of a road for the use of pedestrians)


impasse

→ English: impasse

→ German: Impasse

→ Italian: impasse

→ Dutch: impasse

→ Portuguese: impasse

→ Spanish: impasse


voie

Inherited from Old French voie, veie, inherited from Latin via. Doublet of via. Unrelated to voir and voirie, despite influencing the latter.


Broadway

the wide road which runs diagonally through Manhattan, New York City.


bande d'arrêt d'urgence

fr-noun

bande d’arrêt d’urgence f (plural bandes d’arrêt d’urgence)

bande d’ arrêt d’ urgence (canonical feminine)
bandes d’arrêt d’urgence (plural)


autoroute

→ Khmer: អូតូរុត (ʼoutourut)


carrefour

From Old French quarrefourc, from Latin quadrifurcus, from quadri- < quattuor + furca.


déviation

(transport) diversion; different route to travel


bordure

Haitian Creole: bòdi

desctree

→ Russian: бордюр (bordjur)
→ Georgian: ბორდიური (bordiuri)

Inherited from Old French bordure, bordeure, from border (“to border”), from bort, bord (“a border”), of Germanic origin, from Frankish *bord.


autostrade

[...] si je contemplais aujourd’hui le même site, je constaterais peut-être que l’hybride troupeau a disparu : piétiné par une race plus vigoureuse et plus homogène de gratte-ciel implantés sur ces rives qu’une autostrade a fossilisées d’asphalte.

1955, Claude Lévi-Strauss, chapter XI, in Tristes Tropiques, Plon, published 1993, →ISBN, page 108; republished as John & Doreen Weightman, transl., Tristes Tropiques, Penguin, 2011, →ISBN:

— … if I could see the same scene today, I would perhaps discover that the hybrid herd has vanished, trampled down by a more vigorous and homogeneous race of skyscrapers established on these banks, which may have themselves been fossilized in asphalt to carry a motor-road.


passage à niveau

fr-noun

passage à niveau m (plural passages à niveau)

LL-Q150 (fra)-Lepticed7-passage à niveau.wav


passage clouté

passage clouté m (plural passages cloutés)


chaussée

→ English: chaussée

→ Esperanto: ŝoseo

→ German: Chaussee

→ Kashubian: szasé, szaséjô, szasô

→ Polish: szosa

→ Romanian: șosea

desctree

→ Russian: шоссе́ (šossé)
→ Armenian: շոսսե (šosse), շոշ (šoš) — colloquial, dialectal
→ Azerbaijani: şose
→ Georgian: შოსე (šose)
→ Uzbek: shosse
→ Yiddish: שאָסיי (shosey)

→ Ottoman Turkish: شوسه (şose)

→ Turkish: şose

→ Northern Kurdish: şose

From Old French chauciee, chaucie, from Vulgar Latin *calciāta; there is dispute as to whether this is from Latin calx (“lime”) or its homonym, calx (“heel”) (through the verb calciāre (“stamp, tread on”)). Compare English causeway.

(Belgium) highway. Belgian roads which are named in Dutch as steenweg (e.g. Waversesteenweg) and in Belgian French as chaussée (e.g. Chaussée de Wavre).


panneau

→ Greek: πανό (panó)

→ Turkish: pano

Inherited from Old French panel, inherited from Vulgar Latin *pannellus. Doublet of panel.


stationnement

From stationner + -ment.
The word has been in use in French for a long time. Only in the sense of "parking lot" or "parking space" is this a Quebecism (originally "parc de stationnement") coined by the Office québécois de la langue française to replace the anglicism "parking" within French in official use.


ruelle

Au milieu de gravats, dans un semblant atelier aux murs maculés qu’il est créé dans une ruelle jouxtant la maison de son frère, Mika peint tous les jours, avec assiduité, indifférent au glouglou de la marmite et au babil des mômes.

2015 August 27, “Et pourtant ils créent dans le chaudron de Kinshasa”, in Le Monde:

In the middle of the rubble, in a semblance of a workshop with stained walls which he had set up in an alley next to his brother's house, Mika paints every day, diligently, blind to the bubbling of the stove-pot and the chattering of the children.


sortie de route

fr-noun

sortie de route f (plural sorties de route)

faire une sortie de route

usually benign car accident where a car leaves the road without colliding with other vehicles


allée

→ Danish: allé

→ German: Allee

→ English: allée

→ Norwegian Bokmål: allé

→ Norwegian Nynorsk: allé

→ Russian: аллея (alleja)


passage piéton

passage piéton m (plural passages piétons)


détour

From Old French destour, deverbal from destourner.


nid de poule

LL-Q150 (fra)-Lepticed7-nid de poule.wav


feu vert

donner le feu vert


coin de rue

à tous les coins de rue


rocade

→ Bulgarian: рокада (rokada)

→ Danish: rokade

→ Dutch: rokade (see there for further descendants)

→ German: Rochade

→ Macedonian: рокада (rokada)

→ Romanian: rocadă

→ Russian: рока́да (rokáda)

→ Serbo-Croatian: рокада

→ Swedish: rockad

Equivalent to roquer (“to castle (in chess)”) + -ade, by analogy to how the king and rook move behind the line of pawns.


jonction

Borrowed from Latin iūnctiōnem (accusative singular iūnctiōnem).


contournement

From contourner (“to bypass; to circumvent”) + -ment.


giratoire

Borrowed from Latin gȳrātus (“rotated”) + -oire.


Champs-Élysées

(Greek mythology, Roman mythology) the Elysian Fields, home of the blessed in the afterlife


fondrière

Inherited from Middle French fondriere, from Late Latin fundus, funderis + -iere. .

pothole (hole in a road caused by weathering)


borne électrique

fr-noun

borne électrique m (plural bornes électriques)

an electric charging post for a plug-in electric vehicle


panneau de signalisation

panneau de signalisation m (plural panneaux de signalisation)

LL-Q150 (fra)-0x010C-panneau de signalisation.wav


casse-vitesse

From casser (“to break”) + vitesse (“speed”), literally “speedbreaker”.


cédez-le-passage

fr-noun

cédez-le-passage m (plural cédez-le-passage)


code de la route

code de la route m (plural codes de la route)

LL-Q150 (fra)-Poslovitch-code de la route.wav

(driving) rules of the road, traffic code, traffic regulations, Highway Code


piste cyclable

piste cyclable f (plural pistes cyclables)

(in town) bicycle path, bike path, cycle path, cycle lane, bikeway


aire de repos

rest area, truck stop (rest area along a road, roadside service area)


route royale

(historical) main road (major road linking two cities under the Ancien Régime)


grand chemin

/ɡʁɑ̃ ʃ(ə).mɛ̃/

(historical) main road (major road linking two cities under the Ancien Régime) ; highway


feu rouge

griller un feu rouge


borne kilométrique

borne kilométrique f (plural bornes kilométriques)

kilometre marker, mile marker, milepost, milestone


aire d'autoroute

aire d’autoroute f (plural aires d’autoroute)

aire d’ autoroute (canonical feminine)
aires d’autoroute (plural)


passage pour piétons

passage pour piétons m (plural passages pour piétons)


Grands Boulevards

les Grands Boulevards (canonical masculine plural)

Holonym: Paris

Meronym: Boulevard du crime

An area of Paris with many entertainment venues


voie royale

(historical) King's highway, highway, main road


pousterle

Borrowed from Occitan ; ultimately from Latin posterula.

Holonym: Auch

(Auch) A steep and narrow stairway in the medieval town