Word: path Part of Speech: noun Etymology: From Middle English path, peth, from Old English pæþ (“path, track”), from Proto-West Germanic *paþ, from Proto-Germanic *paþaz (“path”). The Proto-Germanic term is possibly borrowed from Iranian, from Proto-Iranian *pántaHs, from Proto-Indo-Iranian *pántaHs, from Proto-Indo-European *póntoh₁s, from the root *pent- (“to pass”), but this is disputed. Cognates Cognate with Saterland Frisian Paad, Pad (“path”), West Frisian paad (“path”), Dutch pad (“path”), German Pfad (“path”), German Low German Padd (“path”), Luxembourgish Pad (“path”). Indo-Iranian cognates could be Avestan 𐬞𐬀𐬧𐬙𐬃 (paṇtā̊, “way”), Old Persian 𐎱𐎰 (p-θ /⁠paθi⁠/), Hindi पथ (path), Sanskrit पन्था (panthā, “path”). See also English find. Doublet of panth. Pronunciation: /pɑːθ/, [pʰɑːθ], [pʰäːθ], [pʰɐːθ], /pɑt̪ʰ/ 1. A trail for the use of, or worn by, pedestrians. Example: Yet ere to to-morrow's ſun ſhall ſhew his head, / The dewy paths of meadows we will tread, / For crowns and chaplets to adorn thy head. Example: I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn. 2. A course taken. Example: the path of a meteor, of a caravan, or of a storm Example: Just before Warwick reached Liberty Point, a young woman came down Front Street from the direction of the market-house. When their paths converged, Warwick kept on down Front Street behind her, it having been already his intention to walk in this direction. 3. A metaphorical course or route; progress. Example: ⁠But thou and I have shaken hands, ⁠Till growing winters lay me low; ⁠My paths are in the fields I know, And thine in undiscover’d lands. Example: As I explored the possibility of a library science path, having previously been employed in libraries during my school career and afterwards, I decided that I needed to actually experience work in a library setting full time again […] 4. A method or direction of proceeding. Example: All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth. Example: The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 5. A Pagan tradition, for example witchcraft, Wicca, druidism, Heathenry. 6. A human-readable specification for a location within a hierarchical or tree-like structure, such as a file system or as part of a URL. Example: Use the network path \\Marketing\Files to find the documents you need. 7. A sequence of vertices from one vertex to another using the arcs (edges). A path does not visit the same vertex more than once (unless it is a closed path, where only the first and the last vertex are the same). 8. A continuous map f from the unit interval I=[0,1] to a topological space X. 9. A slot available for allocation to a railway train over a given route in between other trains. Example: "Permissive" working allows more than one train to be in a block section at one time but trains must be run at low speed in order to stop on sight behind the train in front. Such working is often authorised to allow freight trains to "bunch" together to await a path through a bottleneck instead of being strung out over several block sections, as would be necessary if absolute working were in force. Example: ... while the planned hourly fast 'Connect' service from Middlesbrough to Newcastle has been postponed indefinitely due to problems in finding paths for it on the East Coast main line.