Before Airports, a Runway Was an Animal Track
A runway is the paved strip an aircraft uses for take-off and landing. The word is older than aviation and once meant the path animals wore into the ground.
A runway is the long paved strip an aircraft accelerates along to leave the ground. The word is a nineteenth-century American coinage that had nothing to do with flight: it meant the beaten track that deer and other animals wear through undergrowth by using the same route. Aviation borrowed a hunting term, and fashion borrowed it again for the catwalk.
- An airport strip. *Cleared to land, runway two seven.*
- A fashion catwalk. *She opened the runway show.*
- A channel or track. *A log runway at the mill.*
- An animal path (older). *A deer runway.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | runway | A short runway. |
| Plural | runways | Three runways. |
| Compound | runway lights | Runway lights blinked. |
| Related | taxiway | Hold at the taxiway. |
| Related | catwalk | A catwalk model. |
- The runway was too short for a loaded jet.Aviation.
- The collection went straight from runway to shop floor.Fashion.
- The startup had eighteen months of runway.Business slang: cash before take-off.
Why runways are numbered
- Numbers are compass headings — runway 27 points roughly west, 270 degrees
- Two numbers, one strip — the same runway is 09 from the other end
- Letters for parallels — 27L and 27R, left and right
- They change — magnetic north drifts, so airports occasionally renumber
- Wind decides — aircraft take off into the wind whenever possible
From *run* plus *way*, first recorded in American English in the 1830s for a game trail. It shifted to aircraft strips in the early twentieth century.
What does runway mean in business?
How long a company can keep operating on the money it already has. The metaphor is an aircraft using up strip before it flies.
Why do numbers on runways change?
They follow magnetic headings, and the magnetic pole moves. Airports repaint the numbers when the drift becomes large enough to matter.