I. ˈrā(ə)lˌrōd sometimes ˈrāu̇ˌ- or ˈreu̇ˌ- noun
Usage: often attributive
Etymology: rail (II) + road
1. : railway 1, 3
2.
a. : a permanent road having a line of rails fixed to ties and laid to gage usually on a leveled or graded ballasted roadbed and providing a track for freight cars, passenger cars, and other rolling stock designed to be drawn by locomotives or sometimes propelled by self-contained motors — see elevated railroad , light railway ; compare tramway
b. : such a road together with all the lands, buildings, rolling stock, franchises, and other assets relating thereto and constituting a single property : a railroad company
railroad shares
3. railroads plural : the securities of railroad transportation companies
4. : a split in bowling in which there is a greater than one-pin distance between the pins left standing making it necessary to hit one pin on the side to slide it across the intervening space to hit another pin in order to make a spare
6-7-10 railroad
8-10 railroad
II. transitive verb
1. : to build railroads in
railroad a country
2. : to transport by railroad
3.
a. : to send or put through in great haste or without due consideration (as for private benefit)
railroad the measure through the legislature
b.
(1) : to send (type matter) to press before reading and correction
(2) : to send (copy) to the composing room without careful editing
4. : to convict and send especially to prison with undue haste and usually by the use of false charges or insufficient evidence : frame
a convicted person who claims to have been railroaded by evidence that was improperly procured — O.K.Fraenkel
being railroaded into a booby hatch — Sidney Howard
railroaded two radicals to death — Lawrence Elliott
intransitive verb
1. : to become employed on a railroad
2. : to travel by rail
3. : to build a railroad
this new, raw land was well worth railroading into — American Guide Series: Washington
III. adjective
of a card game : adapted for play by commuters on railroads with the rules of the game modified to produce quick decisions
railroad bridge
railroad euchre