macadamize

English

Alternative forms

macadamise, McAdamise, McAdamize

Etymology

After Scottish engineer John Loudon McAdam who pioneered this method of road construction around 1820.

Verb

macadamize (third-person singular simple present macadamizes, present participle macadamizing, simple past and past participle macadamized)

To cover, as a road, or street, with small, broken stones, so as to form a smooth, hard, convex surface.
- 1824, Thomas Hood, “Ode on a distant Prospect of Clapham Academy” in New Monthly Magazine 10, April 1824, pp. 355-357,
  Lo there what mix’d conditions run!
  The orphan lad; the widow’s son;
  And Fortune’s favour’d care—
  The wealthy born, for whom she hath
  Mac-Adamized the future path—
  The Nabob’s pamper’d heir!
- 1860, Review of Erastus C. Benedict, A Run Through Europe, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, Volume 21, p. 546,
  He pointed to the macadamized streets about that great hospital, and said, “The managers applied to the Emperor to macadamize the streets, to prevent the noise, and he did it. He does all that is asked of him.” Some say, however, that the Emperor is so ready to macadamize, because paving stones are so convenient in revolutionary barricades.
- 1900, Aylmer Maude (translator), The Slavery of Our Times by Leo Tolstoy, Maldon, Essex: The Free Age Press, Chapter 6, p. 55,
  But even if a means could be found to get all to agree to produce certain articles (though there is no such means, and can be none, except coercion), who, in a free society, without capitalistic production, competition and its law of supply and demand, will decide which articles are to have the preference? Which are to be made first, and which after? Are we first to build the Siberian railway and fortify Port-Arthur, and then macadamise the roads in our country districts, or vice versâ?
- 2016, Ezabir Ali, “Gwalta: On the Line of Hostility,” Greater Kashmir, 8 July, 2016,
  Though the village has recently got a macadamized road under Prime Ministers Gram Sadak Yojna Scheme and regular bus service has now been provided, there are a number of women who have lost their lives due to not receiving medical aid or help during pregnancy and child birth.

Translations

Portuguese: macadamizar

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for macadamize in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913)

Portuguese

Verb

macadamize

inflection of macadamizar:
1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
2. third-person singular imperative