turnpike

Meanings

Noun

• A frame consisting of two bars crossing each other at right angles and turning on a post or pin, to hinder the passage of animals, but admitting a person to pass between the arms; a turnstile.
• A gate or bar set across a road to stop carriages, animals, and sometimes people, until a toll is paid,
• A winding stairway.
• A beam filled with spikes to obstruct passage; a cheval de frise.
• A toll road, especially a toll expressway.
• A trajectory on a finite time interval that satisfies an optimality criterion which is associated with a cost function.

Verb

• To form (a road, etc.) in the manner of a turnpike road, or into a rounded form, as the path of a road.

Origin

• From Middle English turnpyke ("spiked barrier across a road"), originally used to block access to such a road until toll was paid. Equivalent to modern turn + pike.