Other forms: thoroughfares
A thoroughfare is a main road running right through a place. A busy thoroughfare.
The sign no thoroughfare means there is no way through rather than no entry. The through in it is the same word as thorough, which once meant right through.
1nounthoroughfareA main road running right through a place.
“The lane had been the main thoroughfare before the bypass opened.”
thoroughfare is a road.
Middle English thurghfare is through plus fare, an old word for a way or a journey.
Middle English
thurghfare
English, today
thoroughfare
From Middle English thurghfare, corresponding to thorough- + fare. Compare Old English þurhfaran (“to go through, go over, traverse, pierce, pass through, pass beyond, transcend, penetrate”). Compare also Old English þurhfær (“inner secret place”), German Durchfahrt (“passage through, thoroughfare”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA