yellow brick road

4 7.2

A path toward a dream that has problems and surprises

noun
/ˈjɛloʊ brɪk roʊd/

Informal

: camino de ladrillos amarillos

Many people believe that following a yellow brick road can lead to their ultimate happiness and fulfillment.
follow the yellow brick road

And I think that that's he took giddy Diddy by the hand and they walked down the yellow brick road of of protection, government protection.

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Examples

To achieve your dreams, you must embark on your own yellow brick road full of challenges.
Let's add a little bit of yellow Brick Road from the Yellow Brick Road, The Wizard of Oz, my favorite childhood movie.
Go down that yellow brick road and find the wizard who will save us, who represents sitting president.
Now on to the rest of the episode, the You Should Know Podcast, the yellow brick road, up the yellow brick road.
But they act ultimately as a yellow brick road in a way that I found very enticing in your book.
Let me tell you something, if you get to the end of the yellow brick road and figure out why that why is not going to take you to where you trying to get to.
And I think that that's he took giddy Diddy by the hand and they walked down the yellow brick road of of protection, government protection.

Anything Goes With James English
This is the Yellow Brick Road, and there's the rainbow, and there's the Emerald City.
After years of hard work, she finally found her yellow brick road toward success in the industry.

Synonyms

road

vsyellow brick road

∞ 2.7

A way to reach a goal or succeed

is a journey toward dreams with challenges and unexpected adventure

path

vsyellow brick road

824 2.1

A way of doing things that a person chooses to follow

is a journey toward dreams that includes challenges and unexpected adventure

Antonyms

dead end

91 3.6

A situation where no further progress or solution is possible

Surface Forms

yellow brick road singular

yellow brick roads plural

Morphology

yellow + brick + road

The noun 'road' transparently signals a path, but the specific figurative meaning (a journey toward one's dreams with unexpected adventures) relies on the cultural reference from The Wizard of Oz and is not directly derivable from 'yellow' + 'brick' + 'road' alone. A B1 learner who knows the constituents will likely imagine a literal yellow-brick road and would need prior cultural exposure to infer the idiomatic/metaphorical sense, so the expression is only partially predictable.

Etymology

Yellow brick road comes from the story The Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy follows a bright yellow brick road to reach the Emerald City. That clear picture of a long path that leads to a goal but has surprises and hard parts is why the phrase means 'a path toward one's goals or dreams'.