- Avenue(abbreviation Ave., Av.)(used in street names)
a wide street in a town or city （城镇的）大街 a hotel on Fifth Avenue 第五大街上的一家旅馆 120 Holland Park Avenue 荷兰公园大道120号
Culture street namesstreet namesIn Britain, main roads outside towns and cities are known by numbers rather than names, although some roads that follow the line of former Roman roads have names, for example, the Fosse Way, which goes from Exeter in the southwest of England to Lincoln in the East Midlands. If a main road passes through a town, that part of it usually has a name, often that of the place which the road goes to, for example, London Road.The main shopping street in a town is often called High Street, or sometimes Market Street. Many streets take their name from a local feature or building. The most common include Bridge Street, Castle Street, Church Street, Mill Street and Station Road. Some names indicate the trade that was carried on in that area in the past. Examples are Candlemaker's Row, Cornmarket, Petticoat Lane and Sheep Street. Many streets laid out in the 19th century were named after famous people or events. These include Albert Street, Cromwell Road, Shakespeare Street, Wellington Street, Trafalgar Road and Waterloo Street. When housing estates are built, the names of the new roads in them are usually all on the same theme. Names of birds or animals are popular. Others are based on the old names for the fields that the houses were built on, for example Tenacres Road, The Slade and Meadow Walk. The name of a road is written on signs at each end of it.Some streets have become so closely identified with people of a particular profession that the street name itself is immediately associated with them. In London, Harley Street has been associated with private doctors and Fleet Street with newspapers.In the US main roads such as interstates and highways are known by numbers. Most towns and cities are laid out on a grid pattern and have long streets with avenues crossing them. Each has a number, for example, 7th Avenue, 42nd Street. The roads are often straight and have square blocks of buildings between them. This makes it easier to find an address and also helps people to judge distance. In Manhattan, for example, Tiffany's is described as being at East 57th Street and Fifth Avenue, which means it is on the corner of those two streets. The distance between West 90th Street and West 60th Street is 30 blocks.As well as having numbers, many streets are named after people, places, local features, history and nature. In Manhattan there is Washington Street, Lexington Avenue, Liberty Street, Church Street and Cedar Street. Some streets are named after the town to which they lead. Streets called Post Road are named because the mail used be delivered along that route. The most important street is often called Main Street. A suburb or subdivision (= group of houses built together in a section of a city) of a city may have streets with similar names. In a subdivision of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, all the names end in ‚wood‘, for example Balsawood Drive, Limewood Drive and Aspenwood Drive.Some roads are called boulevards, with Hollywood's Sunset Boulevard and Miami's Biscayne Boulevard among the best known. Avenues usually cross streets, as in New York, but often the word is chosen as part of a name for no particular reason. Avenue and boulevard once indicated roads with trees along each side, but few have trees today. A road in the US is usually found outside cities, though Chicago uses the name for some central streets.Some street names have particular associations: Grant Avenue in San Francisco is associated with Chinatown, Beale Street in Memphis with the blues, and Bourbon Street in New Orleans with jazz. In New York Wall Street is associated with the financial world, Madison Avenue with advertising and Broadway with theatres.Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective- broad
- wide
- leafy
- …
- be lined with something
- along an/the avenue
- down an/the avenue
- up an/the avenue
- …
a wide straight road with trees on both sides, especially one leading to a big house 林荫道（尤指通往大住宅者） an avenue lined with plane trees 两旁种满梧桐树的大道
Extra ExamplesTopics Transport by car or lorryc1, Buildingsc1They drove along a broad, tree-lined avenue. 他们驱车沿着绿树成荫的宽阔大道前进。 A mile-long avenue of lime trees leads to the house. 一英里长的石灰树大道通向房子。
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective- broad
- wide
- leafy
- …
- be lined with something
- along an/the avenue
- down an/the avenue
- up an/the avenue
- …
a choice or way of making progress towards something 选择；途径；手段 Several avenues are open to us. 有几个办法可以供我们选择。 We will explore every avenue until we find an answer. 我们会探索一切途径，直到找到答案为止。 He saw suicide as the only avenue left open to him. 他认为自杀是他唯一的出路。
Extra ExamplesTopics Preferences and decisionsc2We will need to seek other avenues of growth. 我们需要寻求其他的增长途径。 an avenue to success 成功之路 the two main avenues of enquiry 两种主要的查询方式 to provide a new avenue for research 为研究提供一种新方法
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective- possible
- potential
- promising
- …
- explore
- pursue
- try
- …
- be open to somebody
- avenue for
- avenue of
- avenue to
- …
Word Originearly 17th cent. (in sense (3)): from French, feminine past participle of avenir ‘arrive, approach’, from Latin advenire, from ad- ‘towards’ + venire ‘come’.