Other forms: underpasses
An underpass is a walkway or road that passes beneath another road. Through the underpass, a pedestrian underpass, the underpass flooded.
Pedestrian underpasses were built in numbers in the 1960s and are now often filled in, because people avoid them: they feel unsafe and they force walkers down and up while traffic keeps its level. Underpasses flood first in heavy rain. Note overpass, its opposite; and subway, the British word for the walking kind.
1noununderpassA walkway or road passing beneath another road.
“We used the underpass to get to the other side of the busy road.”
underpass is a passage.
Middle English
passen
English
pass
English, today
underpass
From under- + pass. pass comes from Middle English passen. From Middle English passen, from Old French passer (“to step, walk, pass”), from Vulgar Latin passo (“step, walk, pass”), derived from Latin passus (“a step”), from Proto-Italic pattus, from Proto-Indo-European peth₂- (“to spread, stretch out”). Cognate with Old English fæþm (“armful, fathom”). More at fathom. Displaced native genġan.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA