Wiktionary

switchback

English edit

WOTD – 27 February 2023

Etymology edit

 
The Zig Zag Railway near Lithgow, New South Wales, Australia, c. 1900, now operated as a heritage railway. It was built as a switchback (noun sense 1.1) with three lines—called the Top Road, Middle Road, and Bottom Road—to climb the western flank of the Blue Mountains.
 
A switchback (noun sense 2.3) on the Terrace Trail, a forest trail in Newcastle, Washington, U.S.A.
 
Switchbacks (noun sense 2.3) on the Route du Col de Braus, a mountain pass in the Alps in the department of Alpes-Maritimes, France.

The noun is derived from switch (“to turn (a train) from one railway track to another using a switch”, verb) +‎ back (“so as to reverse direction and return”, adverb).[1][2]

The verb is derived from the noun.[1]

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

switchback (plural switchbacks) (often attributively or figuratively)

  1. (rail transport)
    1. A railway track on a steep slope in a zigzag formation, in which a train travels in a reverse direction at each switch. [from mid to late 19th c.]
    2. A railway track on which there are steep ascents and descents, a train moving partially or fully by the force of gravity using the momentum generated when descending to travel up an ascending part of the track; especially (British, dated), such a track built for fun rides at an amusement park; a type of rollercoaster.
      • 1964 March, “News and comment: Which way to the west?”, in Modern Railways, Shepperton, Surrey: Ian Allan Publishing, page 147:
        The WR faction claims that the Westbury route is better adapted to high speed, to which advocates of the SR route are apt to retort that the effect of modern diesel traction on schedules over the Salisbury–Exeter switchback has yet to be measured (the speed potential between Waterloo and Salisbury is scarcely disputable) […]
  2. (by extension)
    1. (aviation) A flight path consisting of a series of steep ascents and descents, generally flown as a stunt.
    2. (chiefly British) A path or road having a series of steep ascents and descents.
    3. (chiefly Canada, US, road transport) A sharp bend in a path or road which causes a traveller to almost reverse their direction of travel, especially one of a series of such bends on an incline; a hairpin bend; also a path or road having such a series of bends.
      Coordinate term: horseshoe curve

Derived terms edit

Translations edit

sharp bend in a path or road which causes a traveller to almost reverse their direction of travel — see hairpin bend

See also edit

Verb edit

switchback (third-person singular simple present switchbacks, present participle switchbacking, simple past and past participle switchbacked)

  1. (intransitive) To take a zigzag course or path.
    Synonym: zigzag
    • 2015 June 25, John Henderson, “A secret range of stunning mountains? Hikers, meet Slovakia’s High Tatras”, in Los Angeles Times‎[2], Los Angeles, Calif.: Los Angeles Times Communications, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2021-08-06:
      I climbed 6,683-foot Velka Svistovka, not the highest mountain in the Tatras but arguably the one with the best view. I started from Zelene pleso chata (pleso means "lake" and chata means "hut" in Slovak), and right after turning the first corner I started switchbacking.

Derived terms edit

Translations edit

to take a zigzag course or path — see zigzag

References edit

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 “switchback, adj. and n.”, in OED Online  ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, March 2022.
  2. ^ “switchback, n.”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present, reproduced from Stuart Berg Flexner, editor in chief, Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 2nd edition, New York, N.Y.: Random House, 1993, →ISBN.

Further reading edit

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