Etymology

headway

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Today it means: A movement ahead or forward. Full definition →

Middle English hauedwei ← Old English hēafodweġ
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The story

  1. Old English · inherited fromhēafodweġ“head-road, main-road”
  2. Middle English · inherited fromhauedwei
  3. English todayheadway

Partly from Middle English hauedwei, from Old English hēafodweġ (“head-road, main-road”); partly as a shortening of ahead-way, the source of the nautical sense. By surface analysis, head + way.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.