Macadam is a type of road or pavement constructed from small, closely packed pieces of broken stone.
Macadam is a type of road or pavement constructed from small, closely packed pieces of broken stone.
| Word | macadam |
|---|---|
| Date | October 7, 2016 |
| Type | noun |
| Syllables | muh-KAD-um |
| Etymology | In 1783, inventor John Loudon McAdam returned to his native Scotland after amassing a fortune in New York City. He became the road trustee for his district and quickly set his inventiveness to remedying the terrible condition of local roads. After numerous experiments, he created a new road surfacing material made of bits of stone that became compressed into a solid mass as traffic passed over them. His invention revolutionized road construction and transportation, and engineers and the public alike honored him by using his name (respelled macadam) as a generic term for the material or pavement made from it. He is further immortalized in the verb macadamize, which names the process of installing macadam on a road. |
| Examples | The sloping, curved street saw light traffic and had a smooth macadam surface that made it popular with skateboarders. "Littered on the beach are nearly a dozen big slabs of macadam and even larger chunks of concrete that have slid down the cliff." — Chris Burrell, The Patriot Ledger (Quincy, Massachusetts), 20 Aug. 2016 |
| Definition | : a roadway or pavement of small closely packed broken stone |
Tags: wordoftheday::noun
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