pave·ment

[peyv-muhnt]
noun
1.
a paved road, highway, etc.
2.
a paved surface, ground covering, or floor.
3.
a material used for paving.
4.
Atlantic States and British, sidewalk.
5.
pound the pavement, Informal. to walk the streets in order to accomplish something: If you're going to find work you'd better start pounding the pavement.
00:10
Pavement is always a great word to know.
So is interrobang. Does it mean:
an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance.
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.

Origin:
1250–1300; Middle English < Old French < Latin pavīmentum. See pave, -ment

pave·men·tal [peyv-men-tl] , adjective
pre·pave·ment, noun
sub·pave·ment, noun
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Collins
World English Dictionary
pavement (ˈpeɪvmənt) [Click for IPA pronunciation guide]
 
n
1.  US and Canadian word: sidewalk a hard-surfaced path for pedestrians alongside and a little higher than a road
2.  a paved surface, esp one that is a thoroughfare
3.  the material used in paving
4.  civil engineering the hard layered structure that forms a road carriageway, airfield runway, vehicle park, or other paved areas
5.  geology See limestone pavement a level area of exposed rock resembling a paved road
 
[C13: from Latin pavīmentum a hard floor, from pavīre to beat hard]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline
Word Origin & History

pavement
late 13c., from O.Fr. paviment, from L. pavimentum "beaten floor," from pavire (see pave).
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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Easton
Bible Dictionary

Pavement definition


It was the custom of the Roman governors to erect their tribunals in open places, as the market-place, the circus, or even the highway. Pilate caused his seat of judgment to be set down in a place called "the Pavement" (John 19:13) i.e., a place paved with a mosaic of coloured stones. It was probably a place thus prepared in front of the "judgment hall." (See GABBATHA.)

Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
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American Heritage
Idioms & Phrases

pavement

see pound the pavement.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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Example sentences
Before pavement and machine road grading, it was always far cheaper and easier
  to use waterways for trade and travel.
It reminded me of the way air wavers above hot pavement.
Water over a road, no matter how deep, can hide washed-out pavement.
So we're to conclude that a few feet of pavement somehow are more pavement than
  a mile of pavement.
Idioms & Phrases
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