WAY definition in American English | Collins English Dictionary (2025)

If you refer to a way of doing something, you are referring to how you can do it, for example, the action you can take or the method you can use to achieve it.

Freezing isn't a bad way of preserving food.

I worked myself into a frenzy plotting ways to make him jealous.

There just might be a way.

If you talk about the way someone does something, you are talking about the qualities their action has.

She smiled in a friendly way.

He had a strange way of talking.

If a general statement or description is true in a particular way, this is the form of it that is true in a particular case.

Computerized reservation systems help airline profits in several ways.

She was afraid in a way that was quite new to her.

You use way in expressions such as in some ways, in many ways, and in every way to indicate the degree or extent to which a statement is true.

In some ways, the official opening is a formality.

The ways of a particular person or group of people are their customs or their usual behavior.

He denounces people who urge him to alter his ways.

She began to study the ways of the Native Americans.

If you refer to someone's way, you are referring to their usual or preferred type of behavior.

She is now divorced and, in her usual resourceful way, has started her own business.

You use way to refer to one particular opinion or interpretation of something, when others are possible.

I suppose that's one way of looking at it.

With most of her lyrics, however, there are several different ways of interpreting the words.

You use way when mentioning one of a number of possible, alternative results or decisions.

There is no indication which way the vote could go.

The way you feel about something is your attitude to it or your opinion about it.

I'm so sorry – I had no idea you felt that way.

If you mention the way that something happens, you are mentioning the fact that it happens.

I hate the way he manipulates people.

You use way in expressions such as push your way, work your way, or eat your way, followed by a prepositional phrase or adverb, in order to indicate movement, progress, or force as well as the action described by the verb.

She thrust her way into the crowd.

The way somewhere consists of the different places that you go through or the route that you take in order to get there.

Does anybody know the way to the bathroom?

I'm afraid I can't remember the way.

If you go or look a particular way, you go or look in that direction.

As he strode into the kitchen, he passed Pop coming the other way.

They paused at the top of the stairs, doubtful as to which way to go next.

You can refer to the direction you are traveling in as your way.

[spoken]

She would say she was going my way and offer me a lift.

If you lose your way, you take a wrong or unfamiliar route, so that you do not know how to get to the place that you want to go to. If you find your way, you manage to get to the place that you want to go to.

The men lost their way in a sandstorm and crossed the border by mistake.

You talk about people going their different ways in order to say that their lives develop differently and they have less contact with each other.

It wasn't until we each went our separate ways that I began to learn how to do things for myself.

If something comes your way, you get it or receive it.

Take advantage of the opportunities coming your way in a couple of months.

You use way in expressions such as the right way up and the other way around to refer to one of two or more possible positions or arrangements that something can have.

Books have a right and a wrong way up.

You can use way to emphasize, for example, that something is a great distance away or is very much below or above a particular level or amount.

[emphasis]

Way down in the valley to the west is the town of Freiburg.

You've waited way too long.

If you split something a number of ways, you divide it into a number of different parts or quantities, usually fairly equal in size.

The region was split three ways, between Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria.

Way is used in expressions such as a long way, a little way, and quite a way, to say how far away something is or how far you have traveled.

Some of them live in places quite a long way from here.

A little way further down the lane we passed the driveway to a house.

Way is used in expressions such as a long way, a little way, and quite a way, to say how far away in time something is.

Success is still a long way off.

You use way in expressions such as all the way, most of the way and half the way to refer to the extent to which an action has been completed.

He had unscrewed the caps most of the way.