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paper route

paper route

15 3.2
A regular job delivering newspapers to homes
  • noun
  • /ˈpeɪpər ruːt/
  • US
translation icon : reparto de periódicos
  • When I was a kid, I earned some extra money by delivering papers on my paper route every morning.
  • paper route money
  • got a paper route
  • worked a paper route

He lived on the street that I lived on as a little boy and my brother and I had a paper route and we sold papers to the people on that street.

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Examples

  • You got a paper route I can have?

  • Toby enters the kitchen, coming from his paper route.

    Fiction book (1993)
  • I think I gave up a paper route once.

  • - Hey, pop, are you gonna take us on our paper route this morning?

  • Um, I just got a paper route.

  • What happened, you lose your paper route?

  • Yeah, we had paper routes in those days.

  • I had to save up money from my paper route to buy my Molly doll.

    Blog text (2)
  • We, as kids, worked too... paper routes at first, followed by part-time and summer jobs.

    Blog text (19)
  • By the time I came to the end of my paper route, the morning darkness was a faint, rosy grayness.

    Fiction book (1993)

Synonyms

paper round
vspaper route
  • UK
1 2.7

A regular route for delivering newspapers often done by a young person before school

describes the same job or path without implying a young part timer

Surface Forms

paper route singular
paper routes plural

Morphology

paper + route

The meaning 'a regular job or path for delivering newspapers' is directly derivable from 'paper' (newspaper) + 'route' (designated path), so the compound denotes the route used to deliver papers. This compositional pattern is straightforward and cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the meaning.

Etymology

The noun paper route comes from the image of a young person carrying papers along the same route each morning to deliver them to customers. Because this was a regular 'job' and a set 'path', the phrase now means a regular job or path for 'delivering newspapers'.