Dictionary

superhighway en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (US) audio

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *úp Proto-Indo-European *-er Proto-Indo-European *upér Proto-Italic *super Latin super Latin super-lbor. English super- English highway English superhighway From super- + highway.

Meanings

1. (US) An expressway, especially one designed for high speeds.
2. (broadly) A major route that carries most of the traffic going in a given direction by a specified mode of transportation.
   • We cannot and should not be rebuilding old "two lane" sections of the air transport system with segments having "eight lane superhighway" capacity without knowing the full economic, safety, and environmental impacts of the entire air traffic superhighway. 1996, United States Congress House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Subcommittee on Aviation, Computer outages at the Federal Aviation Administration's Air Traffic Control Center in Aurora, Illinois:
   • By 1400, however, Western Europeans had developed their own versions of oceangoing ships, and these transformed the much narrower Atlantic Ocean from a barrier into a superhighway. 2015, Ian Morris, Stephen Macedo, Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels: How Human Values Evolve, →ISBN:
   • One of them was exploring the possibility of a bicycle superhighway along the River Dodder. 2018, Mikael Colville-Andersen, Copenhagenize: The Definitive Guide to Global Bicycle Urbanism, →ISBN:
3. (figuratively) The primary mechanism used in the movement of electronic data or information; information superhighway.
   • In the discussion about the pros and cons of the electronic superhighway, people often refer to the Internet. 1996, V. J. J. M. Bekkers, Bert-Jaap Koops, Sjaak Nouwt, Emerging Electronic Highways:New Challenges for Politics and Law, →ISBN:
   • How should we reinterpret the universal service obligation for the superhighway? It is clear that price is already a barrier to access to the basic telephone service. 1996, Richard Collins, Converging Media? Converging Regulation?, →ISBN, page 29:
   • As both Bell Atlantic and TCI have made clear, their superhighway will give them full control over the programming from its point of origin through its delivery to the home. 2000, Charles Addo, Corporate Mergers and Acquisitions: A Case Study, page 113:

Forms

Deriveds

information superhighway · electronic superhighway

Translations (6)

ia super-autostrata (US An expressway especially one designed for high speeds) · ca super-autopista (US An expressway especially one designed for high speeds) · vo lemotoraveg (US An expressway especially one designed for high speeds) · es super-autopista (US An expressway especially one designed for high speeds) · de Autobahn (US An expressway especially one designed for high speeds) · pt super-autopista (US An expressway especially one designed for high speeds)