warren of streets
- noun
:
laberinto de calles
- He felt like a rabbit in a warren of streets as he searched for the hidden café within the maze of alleyways.
Examples
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"Pure Dad, really—to find the only exotic name in a warren of streets called Binns.
Fiction book (2002) -
After exploring the old city, we found ourselves lost in a warren of streets with twists and turns at every corner.
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The map was useless as we wandered through the warren of streets, each turn leading to another narrow path.
Synonyms
A street that winds a lot and makes it hard to find your way
A crowded maze of small houses and narrow streets
Antonyms
How Complex
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase relies on a straightforward metaphor: 'warren' (interconnected tunnels) applied to 'streets' gives the image of a maze-like network. A B1 learner who knows both constituent meanings can easily infer that 'a warren of streets' means a complex, confusing tangle of narrow streets rather than an idiomatic or unpredictable sense.
Etymology
Warren of streets may come from the image of a warren, a rabbit home with many narrow tunnels. When people call an area a warren of streets, they picture roads like rabbit passages, so the phrase means 'a complex and confusing network of narrow, winding streets'.