• (RP, America) enPR: wā, IPA: /weɪ/

From Middle English way, wey, from Old English weġ, from Proto-West Germanic *weg, from Proto-Germanic *wegaz, from Proto-Indo-European *weǵʰ-.

way (plural ways)

1. (heading) To do with a place or places.
   1. A road, a direction, a (physical or conceptual) path from one place to another.

      Do you know the way to the airport?  Come this way and I'll show you a shortcut.  It's a long way from here.

      • 1667, John Milton, “Book II”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC ↗:

        The way seems difficult, and steep to scale.

      • 1688 November 15 (Gregorian calendar), John Evelyn, “[Diary entry for 5 November 1688]”, in William Bray, editor, Memoirs, Illustrative of the Life and Writings of John Evelyn, […], 2nd edition, volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […]; and sold by John and Arthur Arch, […], published 1819, →OCLC ↗:

        the season and ways very improper for his Majesty's forces to march so great a distance

      • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC ↗:

        Judge Short had gone to town, and Farrar was off for a three days' cruise up the lake. I was bitterly regretting I had not gone with him when the distant notes of a coach horn reached my ear, and I descried a four-in-hand winding its way up the inn road from the direction of Mohair.

      • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter IV, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC ↗:

        I was on my way to the door, but all at once, through the fog in my head, I began to sight one reef that I hadn't paid any attention to afore.

      • "It's a long way to Tipperary, / it's a long way to go." [It’s a Long Way to Tipperary, a marching and music hall song by Jack Judge and Henry "Harry" James Williams, popularized especially by British troops in World War One]
      • "Do you know the way to San Jose?" [song title and lyrics, Bacharach and David]
   2. A means to enter or leave a place.

      We got into the cinema through the back way.

      • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 14, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC ↗:

        Just under the ceiling there were three lunette windows, heavily barred and blacked out in the normal way by centuries of grime. Their bases were on a level with the pavement outside, a narrow way which was several feet lower than the road behind the house.

   3. A roughly-defined geographical area.

      If you're ever 'round this way, come over and visit me.

2. A method or manner of doing something; a mannerism.

   You're going about it the wrong way.  He's known for his quirky ways.  I don't like the way she looks at me.

   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter II, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC ↗:

     She was a fat, round little woman, richly apparelled in velvet and lace, […] ; and the way she laughed, cackling like a hen, the way she talked to the waiters and the maid, […]—all these unexpected phenomena impelled one to hysterical mirth, and made one class her with such immortally ludicrous types as Ally Sloper, the Widow Twankey, or Miss Moucher.

   1. (with 'the', usually, with modifier) A set of values and customs associated with and seen as central to the identity of a group of people.
3. A state or condition

   When I returned home, I found my house and belongings in a most terrible way.

4. (heading) Personal interaction.
   1. Possibility (usually in the phrases 'any way' and 'no way').

      There's no way I'm going to clean up after you.

   2. Determined course; resolved mode of action or conduct.

      My little sister always whines until she gets her way.

5. (Germanic paganism) A tradition within the modern pagan faith of Heathenry, dedication to a specific deity or craft, Way of wyrd, Way of runes, Way of Thor etc.
   • To walk the Way of the Runes, you must experience the runes as they manifest both in the part of Midgard that lies outside yourself and the worlds within. (Diana Paxson)
6. (nautical, uncountable) Speed, progress, momentum.
   • 1855 December – 1857 June, Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1857, →OCLC ↗:

     Immediately afterwards, a quick and eager short dark man came into the room with so much way upon him that he was within a foot of Clennam before he could stop.

   • 1977, Richard O'Kane, Clear the Bridge: The War Patrols of the U.S.S. Tang, Ballantine Books, published 2003, page 343:

     Ten minutes into the run Tang slowed, Welch calling out her speed as she lost way.

7. A degree, an amount, a sense.

   In a significant way, crocodiles and alligators are similar.

   • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VIII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC ↗:

     That concertina was a wonder in its way. The handles that was on it first was wore out long ago, and he'd made new ones of braided rope yarn. And the bellows was patched in more places than a cranberry picker's overalls.

8. (US, As the head of an interjectory clause, followed by an infinitive starting with “to”) Acknowledges that a task has been done well, chiefly in expressions of sarcastic congratulation.

   Way to ruin the moment, guys.

9. (plural only) The timbers of shipyard stocks that slope into the water and along which a ship or large boat is launched.
10. (plural only) The longitudinal guiding surfaces on the bed of a planer, lathe, etc. along which a table or carriage moves.

• See also Thesaurus:way

• French: voie, chemin
• German: Weg
• Italian: via
• Portuguese: caminho, via
• Russian: путь
• Spanish: camino, vía

• French: moyen
• Italian: mezzo
• Portuguese: caminho, meio
• Russian: путь
• Spanish: medios

• Portuguese: caminho

• French: manière, façon, moyen
• German: Weise, Art, Methode
• Italian: maniera, modo
• Portuguese: jeito, maneira, modo
• Russian: спо́соб
• Spanish: manera, modo, forma

• Portuguese: jeito

• Portuguese: jeito

• Portuguese: caminho

• Portuguese: jeito

1. (slang, only in reply to no way) yes; it is true; it is possible

   Synonyms: yes way

   • 1992, Wayne's World (film):

     - We searched the vehicle. It was clean, so we did the body cavity searches.
     - No way.
     - Way!

way (ways, present participle waying; simple past and past participle wayed)

1. (obsolete) To travel.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.ii:

     on a time as they together way'd, / He made him open chalenge […] .

   • 1919, Gotō Shinpei, "Japanese Statesman on Christian Missions", The Missionary Review, Volume 42, p. 660

     Laozi says, “The Name that can be named is not the Eternal Name. The Way that can be wayed, is not the Eternal Way.” Infinite wisdom is beyond the human power to understand.

Apheresis of away.

way (not comparable)

1. (informal, with an adverbial) Far.

   I used to live way over there.

   The farmhouse is way down the bottom of the hill.

   He kicked the ball way up.

2. (informal, with comparative or with too + adjective) Much, far, by a great degree.

   I'm a way better singer than Emma.

   I'm way too tired to do that.

3. (slang, with positive adjective) Very.

   I'm way tired.

   String theory is way cool, except for the math.

• (much) far, much, a lot, loads
• (very) so, very, so much

way (not comparable)

1. (informal, attributive) Extreme, far

   Sitting in the way back of the bus

way (plural ways)

1. (glassblowing, obsolete) A seventeenth-century unit of Rhenish glass containing 60 bunches.

   Synonyms: web

From the sound it represents, by analogy with other (velar) letters such as kay and gay#Etymology_2.

way (plural ways)

1. The letter for the w sound in Pitman shorthand.

• double-u

From specific instances of way.

1. (Christianity, with the definite article) Christianity.
   • 1946, The Bible, Revised Standard Version, Acts 9:1-2:

     But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

2. (Chinese philosophy, with the definite article) Synonym of Tao: the way of nature and/or the ideal way in which to live one's life.
3. (Sussex, with the definite article) Clipping of South Downs Way

   We're walking along the Way now.

1. Surname.
2. Way, Mississippi, an unincorporated community in Madison County, Mississippi.