road metal
- noun
- UK
:
material para carreteras
- After laying down the road metal, the workers compacted it to create a stable base for the new road.
Examples
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The construction crew ordered more road metal to finish resurfacing the highway.
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Using recycled road metal has become a popular method for maintaining and repairing existing roads.
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Since 1987, the factory has been producing road metal, cold bitumen-concrete mix, sand, and other construction raw materials.
Blog text (5) -
Limestone micro fossils and sandstone road metal from both the van and the station wagon put the two vehicles in the same area of state forest, which confirms sightings.
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At site 1, the Anthroposol soil type comprises a hard gravel path, which was formed from transported road metal being placed over the original natural Dermosol soil type (light clay over heavy clay soil) (Fig. 3).
Academic text (2017)
Synonyms
976
1.0
A hard natural rock used for building or a small piece of it
1
8.6
A road surface made from layers of small broken stones pressed together
A hard dark rock people use to make roads and buildings
How Coarse
Surface Forms
Morphology
road + metal
A B1 learner who knows 'road' and the common sense of 'metal' (a metallic substance) would not be able to infer 'broken stone used in roadmaking'—the phrase is a technical/regional term (from road 'metalling') whose meaning has shifted away from the everyday sense of 'metal'. Because the sense is specialized and non-compositional for typical learners, it is not predictable from the constituents.
Etymology
Road metal gets its name from the old use of metal to mean a useful material or rock taken from the ground, not iron. Imagine workers spreading small broken stones across a road to make it hard and smooth. That crushed rock is the road metal, so the phrase means 'broken stone used to build and repair roads'.