railroad ticket
1
2.0
- noun
- /ˈreɪlˌrɔrd ˈtɪkɪt/
- US
:
billete de tren
- I bought a railroad ticket for my trip to New York City next week.
Examples
-
As a youth, he worked as a newsboy, enjoying the highly competitive environment, and after leaving school, he worked as an agent selling railroad tickets for a cut-rate concern (CFW, June 2, 1943, 6).
Academic text (2006) -
We want our railroad tickets and we're going in the other direction.
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They want railroad tickets, give them bus tickets.
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This is a railroad ticket to Gurky's Corners.
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My father had been wounded in the First World War, a condition that granted him the Iron Cross Second Class and entitled him to such privileges as riding first-class on a second-class railroad ticket.
Academic text (1998) -
He showed the conductor his railroad ticket before boarding the train.
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The railroad ticket allowed her to travel across the country without any issues.
Synonyms
9
1.0
A paper or digital pass that lets you travel on a train
How Long
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and transparently derived from combining 'railroad' (the train network or company) with 'ticket' (a document permitting travel); a B1 learner who knows both words will readily infer it denotes a ticket for travel by train. This noun+noun compositional pattern is common cross-linguistically and follows standard English compounding, so the expression is immediately comprehensible without prior exposure.
Etymology
Railroad ticket comes from the paper slip passengers gave to the train conductor: the word ticket meant a small paper and railroad showed it was for train travel. That image—handing over the railroad ticket to be allowed on the train—explains why it means a paper that lets you 'travel' on a railroad today.