RIGHT OF WAY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does right of way mean? 

• RIGHT OF WAY (noun)
  The noun RIGHT OF WAY has 3 senses:

1. the privilege of someone to pass over land belonging to someone else

2. the right of one vehicle or vessel to take precedence over another

3. the passage consisting of a path or strip of land over which someone has the legal right to pass

  Familiarity information: RIGHT OF WAY used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• RIGHT OF WAY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The privilege of someone to pass over land belonging to someone else

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("right of way" is a kind of...):

easement ((law) the privilege of using something that is not your own (as using another's land as a right of way to your own land))

Sense 2

Meaning:

The right of one vehicle or vessel to take precedence over another

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("right of way" is a kind of...):

right (an abstract idea of that which is due to a person or governmental body by law or tradition or nature)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The passage consisting of a path or strip of land over which someone has the legal right to pass

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("right of way" is a kind of...):

passage (a way through or along which someone or something may pass)

 Context examples 

On a table by the window in Buckingham Street, we set out the work Traddles procured for him—which was to make, I forget how many copies of a legal document about some right of way—and on another table we spread the last unfinished original of the great Memorial.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

To this hour I don't know whether my aunt had any lawful right of way over that patch of green; but she had settled it in her own mind that she had, and it was all the same to her.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)