Other forms: paths
A path is a narrow way for walking, worn or made through a garden, a wood or a park. A garden path, a footpath, follow the path.
In Britain a public footpath is a legal right of way across private land, and that is a real and jealously defended thing. Figuratively, a path is a course of action or a direction in life: a career path, the path to recovery, go down that path. In computing, a path is the address of a file. Note the plural, said with a voiced th — paths — and lead somebody up the garden path, meaning to mislead them.
1nounpathA narrow way for walking.
“The path runs along the top of the ridge.”
2nouncourseA course of action or direction.
“It is a difficult path and they chose it deliberately.”
3nounrouteThe route something takes.
“The storm's path took it inland.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
path is a way through.
Old English paeth has an unusual history: it appears in the West Germanic languages and nowhere else, and may have been borrowed early from an Iranian language by way of Scythian traders. If so it is one of the oldest loanwords in English.
Proto-Indo-European
*pent-
Proto-Indo-European
*póntoh₁s
Proto-Indo-Iranian
*pántaHs
ira-pro
*pántaHs
Proto-Germanic
*paþaz — path
Proto-West Germanic
*paþ
Old English
pæþ — path, track
Middle English
path
English, today
path
Built from
From Middle English path, peth, from Old English pæþ (“path, track”), from Proto-West Germanic paþ, from Proto-Germanic paþaz (“path”). The Proto-Germanic term is possibly borrowed from ira, from ira-pro pántaHs, from Proto-Indo-Iranian pántaHs, from Proto-Indo-European póntoh₁s, from the root pent- (“to pass”), but this is disputed. 2 Cognate with stq Paad, Pad (“path”), West Frisian paad (“path”), Dutch pad (“path”), German Pfad (“path”), German Low German Padd (“path”), lb Pad (“path”). Indo-Iranian cognates could be ae 𐬞𐬀𐬧𐬙𐬃 (“way”), peo 𐎱𐎰, Hindi पथ, Sanskrit पन्था (“path”). See also English find. a doublet of panth.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA