way!
Definitions
General English
- noun (written as way)the direction in which something can be found or in which someone or something is going
- noun (written as way)the means of doing something
- noun (written as way)the distance between one place and another
- noun (written as way)a path or road which goes somewhere
- noun (written as way)a particular direction from here
- noun (written as way)a space where someone wants to be or which someone wants to use
Military
- noun (written as way)a road, path, track or any other natural or man-made feature which allows movement
- noun (written as way)a route
Slang
- combining form (written as way-)this intensifier, signifying ‘extremely’, was fashionable in youth subcultures in the late 1980s and early 1990s, particularly in the catchphrase way-cool
- exclamation a contradiction of ‘no way!’, popularised by the cult US film Wayne’s World in 1992
Origin & History of “way!”
In common with German and Dutch weg, Swedish väg, and Danish vej, way goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *wegaz. this was formed from the base *weg- ‘move, carry’ (source also of English waggon, wee, and weigh), which in turn was descended from Indo-European *wegh-. This also produced English vector, vehicle, etc, and a variant of it is responsible for English wag and wave of the sea.
