avenue

plural avenues

1. A broad street, especially one bordered by trees or, in cities laid out in a grid pattern, one that is on a particular side of the city or that runs in a particular direction.

   Boulevards typically (but not exclusively) go east to west; avenues usually run north to south.

   2011, Time Out Los Angeles, →ISBN, page 78

   2 more examples

   Finding an address east to west is fairly simple . The numbering begins at Central Avenue and moves logically and predictably either west through the avenues or east through the streets, so you know that 2400 East Camelback is at Twenty-Fourth Street or 4300 West Indian School is at Forty-Third Avenue .

   2009, Carrie Frasure, Arizona Off the Beaten Path®: A Guide to Unique Places, →ISBN, page 111

   The City of New York implemented a unified street grid in Queens: Numbered avenues run east–west; numbered streets run north–south.

   2014, Adrienne Onofri, Walking Queens, →ISBN

   Synonyms: drive, boulevard, av., av, ave., ave

2. A way or opening for entrance into a place; a passage by which a place may be reached; a way of approach or of exit.

   [S]ome have used to get on the top of the higheſt Steeple, vvhere one may vievv with advantage, all the Countrey circumjacent, and the ſite of the City, vvith the advenues and approaches about it; and ſo take a Landskip of it.

   1642, James Howell, “Section III”, in Instructions for Forreine Travell. […], London: […] T. B. for Humprey Mosley [i.e., Humphrey Moseley] […], →OCLC, page 32

3. The principal walk or approach to a house which is withdrawn from the road, especially, such approach bordered on each side by trees; any broad passageway thus bordered.

   They said nothing further, but tramped on in the growing darkness, past farm steadings, into the little village, through the silent churchyard where generations of the Pallisers lay, and up the beech avenue that led to Northrop Hall.

   1907 January, Harold Bindloss, chapter 1, in The Dust of Conflict, 1st Canadian edition, Toronto, Ont.: McLeod & Allen, →OCLC

4. A method or means by which something may be accomplished.

   There are several avenues by which we can approach this problem.

   5 more examples

   As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent Patriot.

   1796, George Washington, "Farewell Address", American Daily Advertiser

   The main reason for this state of affairs is probably that, for the exceptionally able man who accepts the present order of society, a multitude of other avenues to influence and power are open, while to the disaffected and dissatisfied an intellectual career is the most promising path to both influence and the power to contribute to the achievement of his ideals.

   1949, F. A. Hayek, “The Intellectuals and Socialism”, in University of Chicago Law Review, volume 16, number 3, Chicago: University of Chicago, →DOI, page 427

   In the future, he says, a focus on the hate circuit may open new avenues for treatment – including new drugs and psychotherapies – that target this and other specific circuits in the brain.

   2011 October 4, Amanda MacMillan, “Depressed brains may hate differently”, in CNN

   Alexis Sanchez hit the crossbar for Barcelona early on and Pedro hit the post in the dying seconds - while Cole cleared off the line from Cesc Fabregas. Goalkeeper Petr Cech also saved well from Messi and Carles Puyol as Pep Guardiola's team tried every avenue in an attempt to break Chelsea down.

   2012 April 18, Phil McNulty, “Chelsea 1-0 Barcelona”, in BBC Sport

   One avenue being explored is the Esk Valley line's community rail designation status, to see if standards more appropriate to a main line railway can be challenged with a view to facilitating low-cost operation of a rural branch.

   2019 October, James Abbott, “Esk Valley revival”, in Modern Railways, page 78