high road

plural high roads · alternative highroad

1. UKA main road or highway.

   Near-synonyms: highway (variably 'main' or not), high street (precisely coordinate)

   5 more examples

   BRITISH CONSTRUCTION OF TELEGRAPHIC APPARATUS. R. S. Culley states that small insulators, formed of good porcelain, are the best, although, on several accounts, ebonite is recommended. Dirt and moisture are the principal things to be guarded against, but not all; for many mischievous boys, who would not take the trouble to break an unpretending black cap, can not resist the temptation of throwing at a large white one. Insects, especially spiders, are a source of peculiar annoyance. In the high roads of Ireland they are very troublesome, and in India, however large an insulator may be, an insect of the proper size is always ready to inhabit it. With respect to the construction of a line of telegraph the author states that it is preferable to use suspended rather than buried wires, because of the liability of gutta-percha and india-rubber to deteriorate underground, the expense of repairing faults, and the retardation of signals in consequence of the greater inductive capacity of wires so laid. On the other hand, gutta-percha is indestructible in sea-water, which is not, however, the case with india-rubber.

   1875, “Electricity, Light, Heat, Sound”, in Alfred E. Beach, editor, The Science Record for 1875: A Compendium of Scientific Progress and Discovery During the Past Year (Science Record), volume 4, Munn and Company, page 239

   On Wednesday, the 27th, we arrived at a place called Tʻien-chin. Here we were not on the high road to Pekin, hence the excitement created by our arrival was greater than I had ever before witnessed.

   Nov. 1, 1878, Rev. Miles Greenwood, “North China”, in The Mission Field, number 275, page 544

   There, a few yards before them, was the high road from Risingham to Shoreby, lying, at this point, between two even walls of forest.

   1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter 6, in The Black Arrow

   The highroad on the other side was frequented by few, for a nearer-hand way to the west had been made through the lower Moss.

   1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide

   [This book is a] funny memoir of a year in the life of a Scottish used bookseller as he stays afloat while managing staff, customers, and life in the village of Wigtown. Inside a Georgian townhouse on the Wigtown highroad, jammed with more than 100,000 books and a portly cat named Captain, Shaun Bythell manages the daily ups and downs of running Scotland's largest used bookshop with a sharp eye and even sharper wit. His account of one year behind the counter is something no book lover should miss.

   2020, Godine, “[Descriptive overview of Confessions of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell]”, in [catalog], Godine

   Synonyms: highway, high street

2. idiomaticA course of action which is dignified, honourable, or respectable.

   take the high road

   1 more example

   The high road of public service and the low road of political advantage seem inextricably intertwined.

   1982 November 22, Thomas Griffith, “A Tilt Called Cynicism”, in Time

   Antonyms: low road

3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see high, road.