promenade means A prom (dance). It carries an Arena rating of 1735, earned across 6 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, promenade ranks #3,232 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #6,924 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #16,483 of 17,151 for The Improbable.
promenade is pronounced /ˈpɹɒm.əˌnɑːd/.
Why “promenade” is a great word
A leisurely walk taken for pleasure or display, or a public place designed for such walking. From the French *promenade*, from *promener* ("to walk, to take for a walk"), itself from Late Latin *prominare* ("to drive forward"); first attested in English in the 1560s. Unlike a “hike,” which implies vigor and distance over rough terrain, or a “procession,” which denotes formal, ceremonial order, a promenade is a performance of leisure and society. It is the measured pacing along a sun-dappled esplanade, the seeing and being seen in the evening air of a city square, the crisp crunch of gravel underfoot in a curated garden—a deliberate, gentle assertion of one’s place in the civilized world, an agreement that some distances are meant to be crossed not for arrival, but for the quiet theater of the crossing itself.
Etymology
Unadapted borrowing from French promenade, from promener (“to walk”).
noun
- A prom (dance).
- A walk taken for pleasure, display, or exercise; a stroll.e.g.“they told him to think no more of the matter , and to try his fortune in another promenade” — 1795–1797, Edmund Burke, “(please specify |letter=1 to 4)”, in [Letters on a Regicide Peace], London: [Rivington]:
- A place where one takes a walk for leisurely pleasure, or for exercise, especially a terrace by the seaside.e.g.“The present dream in particular scarcely left any room for doubt, since the place where my patient fell was the Graben, a part of Vienna notorious as a promenade for prostitutes.” — 1900, Sigmund Freud, translated by James Strachey, The Interpretation of Dreams, Avon Books, page 235:
- A dance motion consisting of a walk, done while square dancing.
verb
- To walk for amusement, show, or exercise.
- To perform the stylized walk of a square dance.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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