Kilo Lingo

Line drawing of trotuaro
Coloured illustration of trotuaro
#2690 of 5,000 Core 5000

Translation

pavement, footway

Word origin

From French trottoir, the place where you trot, built on trotter. Esperanto took the Paris word for the Paris invention, and so did most of Europe.

Origin
French
Root
trottoir
English cognates
trot

Examples

.

The children played on the pavement in front of the house.

.

A bicycle should not ride on the pavement.

.

We walked along the pavement as far as the corner of the street.

British pavement, American sidewalk, one word. A is the raised strip beside the strato where people walk and vehicles do not. English cannot say that in a word both halves of the Atlantic agree on. Esperanto can, and it did it by taking the French trottoir, which means roughly the trotting-place.

One trap for British speakers. Pavement in British English also names the paved surface itself, and Esperanto has a separate word for that: pavimo is the paving, the made-up surface of a road or a yard, whether or not anybody walks on it. So a road can have pavimo and no at all. Keep for the footway and you will not go wrong.

The street furniture around it. Strato at 362 is the street as a whole, vojo at 202 is the road or the way, and vojkruciĝo is a junction. You go piede on the trotuaro, ride a biciklo on the road, and cross where the paint is: zebrostrio, the zebra crossing, which is as vivid in Esperanto as it is in English.

Where this fits

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Esperanto · Free printables

trotuaro: worksheet, infographic and listicle

Free printable study downloads for the Esperanto word "trotuaro" (pavement, footway): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.

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This word is part of lesson 54.