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street [street 词源字典]: street: [OE] Etymologically, a street is a road that has been ‘spread’ – with paving stones, that is. A ‘paved’ road, in other words. The term was borrowed into prehistoric West Germanic from Latin strāta, short for via strāta ‘paved road’. Strāta was the feminine form of strātus, the past participle of sternere ‘spread out’ (source of English strata, stratify, etc). The related Germanic forms are German strasse and Dutch straat, while the term is also preserved in the Romance languages, in Italian strada, which was borrowed by Romanian as strada.
=> strata[street etymology, street origin, 英语词源]
backstreet (n.): mid-15c., from back (adj.) + street.
Carnaby Street (n.): street in Soho, London (Westminster), in mid-1960s lined with fashionable boutiques and clothing shops, hence used figuratively from 1964 for English 1960s stylishness. It was named for Karnaby House, built 1683, from a surname or transferred from Carnaby in Yorkshire, which is from a Scandinavian personal name + -by (see by).
cross-street (n.): 1704, from cross- + street.
Downing Street: short street in London, named for British diplomat Sir George Downing (c. 1624-1684). It contains the residence of the prime minister (at Number 10), hence its metonymic use for "the British government," attested from 1781.
Grub-street (n.): 1620s, "originally the name of a street in Moorfields in London, much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems; whence any mean production is called grubstreet" [Johnson]. The place was renamed 1830 to Milton Street (after a local developer) then erased entirely 1970s by the Barbicon complex.
Main Street (n.): "principal street of a (U.S.) town," 1810. Used allusively to indicate "mediocrity, small-town materialism" from late 19c., especially since publication of Sinclair Lewis's novel "Main Street" (1920).
off-street (adj.): 1929, from off (adv.) + street.
street (n.): Old English stret (Mercian, Kentish), stræt (West Saxon) "street, high road," from Late Latin strata, used elliptically for via strata "paved road," from fem. past participle of Latin sternere "lay down, spread out, pave," from PIE *stre-to- "to stretch, extend," from root *stere- "to spread, extend, stretch out" (see structure (n.)).

One of the few words in use in England continuously from Roman times. An early and widespread Germanic borrowing (Old Frisian strete, Old Saxon strata, Middle Dutch strate, Dutch straat, Old High German straza, German Strasse, Swedish stråt, Danish sträde "street"). The Latin is also the source of Spanish estrada, Old French estrée, Italian strada.

"The normal term in OE for a paved way or Roman road, later extended to other roads, urban streets, and in SE dialects to a street of dwellings, a straggling village or hamlet" [Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names]. Originally of Roman roads (Watling Street, Icknield Street). "In the Middle Ages, a road or way was merely a direction in which people rode or went, the name street being reserved for the made road" [Weekley].

Used since c. 1400 to mean "the people in the street;" modern sense of "the realm of the people as the source of political support" dates from 1931. The street for an especially important street is from 1560s (originally of London's Lombard-street). Man in the street "ordinary person, non-expert" is attested from 1831. Street people "the homeless" is from 1967; expression on the street "homeless" is from 1852. Street smarts is from 1971; street-credibility is from 1979. Street-sweeper as an occupation is from 1848.
street-car (n.): "passenger car for city travel," horse-drawn at first, later cable-powered, 1859, American English, from street (n.) + car (n.).
street-walker (n.): "common prostitute," 1590s, from street (n.) + agent noun from walk (v.).
street-wise (adj.): 1951, from street + wise (adj.) "smart, savvy."
Wall Street (n.): "U.S. financial world," 1836, from street in New York City that is home to many investment firms and stock traders, as well as NYSE. The street so called because it ran along the interior of the defensive wall of the old Dutch colonial town.
Wardour-street (n.): "affected pseudo-archaic diction of historical novels," 1888, from street in London lined with shops selling imitation-antique furniture.
This is not literary English of any date; this is Wardour-Street Early English -- a perfectly modern article with a sham appearance of the real antique about it. [A. Ballantyne, "Wardour-Street English," Longman's Magazine, October, 1888]