way-station

A form of way station — A small railway station between the principal stations or a station where the train stops only on a signal.

Meanings

nounway-station (plural way-stations)

plural way-stations

  1. alternativeAlternative form of way station.

    Just then, as it happened, the train reached a solitary way-station.

    1851 April 9, Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Flight of two Owls”, in The House of the Seven Gables, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC, page 285
    3 more examples

    Here Belinsky has reached a way-station on the route to something else.

    1975, Rufus W. Mathewson, Jr., The Positive Hero in Russian Literature, 2nd edition, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, →ISBN, page 37

    At one of the way-stations on his long journey a barmaid at a tavern speaks to Gilgamesh and tries to give him common sense on the human condition.

    1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 201

    At the same time, Mano Majra serves as the site of a murder-burglary, attempted communist activities, and “ghost train” way-station.

    2013, Cara N. Cilano, Contemporary Pakistani Fiction in English: Idea, Nation, State (Routledge Contemporary South Asia Series), Routledge, →ISBN, page 18
Cite this entry
APA

way-station. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/way-station

MLA

“way-station.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/way-station. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “way-station,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/way-station.

Source: way-station on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.