hampton roads

Questions about hampton roads

What does hampton roads mean?

hampton roads means "a channel in southeastern Virginia through which the Elizabeth River and the James River flow into Chesapeake Bay". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

Is hampton roads a common word?

hampton roads is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.