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On the autobahn, Sport+ lowers the ride height and takes some camber off the wheels for better straight-line performance.—Jonathan M. Gitlin, ArsTechnica, 7 Aug. 2025 Beer plays Laura, a piano student at a music academy in Berlin, first seen in the opening shots on an autobahn overpass looking down at a river.—David Rooney, HollywoodReporter, 17 May 2025 During my test driving, which comprised about 45 miles, in a variety of modes and at a variety of speeds including close to 100mph on a German autobahn, the car achieved close to 3 miles per kWh.—James Morris, Forbes.com, 29 Mar. 2025 The other side: Richmond, Virginia, is a veritable autobahn by comparison, with drivers making the same distance trip in under 10 minutes on average.—Shawna Chen, Axios, 8 Jan. 2025 See All Example Sentences for autobahn
Word History
Etymology
borrowed from German Autobahn, from Autoauto entry 1 + Bahn "path, way, lane," going back to Middle High German ban, bane "cleared path, track," akin to Middle Low German & Middle Dutch bāne in same sense, of uncertain origin
Note:
The Germanic etymon represented by Bahn is perhaps akin to Old High German bano "killer, murderer," Old English bana, etc. (see bane entry 1), if both descend from a verb meaning "strike, beat down." See Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Band 1, pp. 460-61.
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