skid road
- noun
- Specialized
:
camino de arrastre
- The workers used a skid road to haul the giant tree trunks out of the forest.
Examples
-
Without a skid road, transporting the felled logs would be much more difficult.
-
The skid road was muddy after the rain.
-
Early logging operations often relied on a skid road for moving timber.
-
Can you tell me where the nearest skid road is?
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Early logging operations often relied on a skid road for moving timber.
-
The workers used a skid road to haul the giant tree trunks out of the forest.
-
Without a skid road, transporting the felled logs would be much more difficult.
Synonyms
5
8.0
A sloping track used to slide logs down a hill
1
4.8
A rough path made by cart wheels
A rough road in the countryside for carts
Surface Forms
Morphology
The sense 'a rough district frequented by loggers' cannot be derived from the literal meanings of 'skid' (a support or sliding action) and 'road' (a way); this is a historically rooted, region-specific idiom whose semantics have shifted from logging practice to a type of neighborhood. A B1 learner who knows the constituent words would not reliably infer this figurative, culture-bound meaning without prior exposure, so it is opaque.
Etymology
Skid road comes from old logging work. Loggers laid whole logs side by side to make a path so new tree trunks could be slid or skid out of the forest. That's why it means 'a rough road for dragging timber'.