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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

path.

A trail for the use of, or worn by, pedestrians.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/pɑːθ/[pʰɑːθ]Received-Pronunciation[pʰäːθ]Australia, New-Zealand[pʰɐːθ]Australia, New-Zealand

  1. A trail for the use of, or worn by, pedestrians.

  2. A course taken.

    the path of a meteor, of a caravan, or of a storm

  3. A metaphorical course or route; progress.

  4. A method or direction of proceeding.

  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.

    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.

Where this word comes from

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.

verb/pɑːθ/[pʰɑːθ]Received-Pronunciation[pʰäːθ]Australia, New-Zealand[pʰɐːθ]Australia, New-Zealand

  1. To make a path in, or on (something), or for (someone).

    transitive

  2. To navigate through a file system directory tree (to a desired file or folder).

    intransitive
    Next, you need to path to the location of the executable and run it from there.

  3. To pathfind.

    intransitive
Where this word comes from

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.

noun

  1. Pathology.

    abbreviation · uncountable
Where this word comes from

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.