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'Road' is a path for vehicles; 'rode' is the past tense of 'to ride'.
Side-by-side comparison
"Road" is the paved way for vehicles to travel on. "On the road" = travelling or touring. "Road trip" = a journey made by car.
The road to the airport was completely blocked during rush hour.
The road to success is rarely straight.
Workers were repairing a section of road in the town centre.
"Rode" is the simple past tense of "ride": to travel on a horse, bicycle, or vehicle. "She rode her bike to school" = she cycled to school.
She rode her bike to work every day that summer.
He rode the subway for forty minutes each way.
They rode horses through the national park for three hours.
Common mistake
- •"He road the horse" when meaning the past of ride is wrong (correct: rode).
- •And "The rode was dangerous" when meaning the street is wrong (correct: road).
Trick to remember it
- •"Road" has OAD like "load" and "broad", wide, static things on the ground.
- •"Rode" has ODE like "mode" and "code", completed past states.
Quick rule
- •Is it the physical path for vehicles? "Road".
- •Is it the past of to ride? "Rode".
Did you know?
Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" (1957) was famously written in three weeks on a continuous roll of paper about thirty metres long, so he would not have to stop to change pages and interrupt his flow. The novel defined the Beat Generation and elevated the American road trip to the status of a spiritual quest. Interesting: the English word ROAD comes from Old English "rad" (a riding, a journey on horseback), the same root as RIDE and RODE. So ROAD, RIDE, and RODE are etymological siblings.
Practise what you learned
Exercise 1 · Pick the right one
He _____ his bike to school every morning when the weather was nice.
Exercise 2 · Pick the right one
The new _____ connects the two villages for the first time.
Exercise 3 · Form the word
Related word pairs
One means to receive or agree to something, the other means to exclude or not include.
'Advice' is the guidance you receive (noun); 'advise' is the act of giving that guidance (verb).
'Affect' is the verb meaning to influence something; 'effect' is the noun meaning result or consequence.
'Aisle' is the walkway between rows of seats or shelves; 'isle' is a small island.
Bryan López
Founder of SpeakUP Academy