Main Difference
The main difference between Street and Alley is that the Street is a public thoroughfare in a built environment and Alley is a narrow street.
-
Street
A street is a public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, but is more often paved with a hard, durable surface such as tarmac, concrete, cobblestone or brick. Portions may also be smoothed with asphalt, embedded with rails, or otherwise prepared to accommodate non-pedestrian traffic.
Originally, the word street simply meant a paved road (Latin: via strata). The word street is still sometimes used colloquially as a synonym for road, for example in connection with the ancient Watling Street, but city residents and urban planners draw a crucial modern distinction: a road’s main function is transportation, while streets facilitate public interaction. Examples of streets include pedestrian streets, alleys, and city-centre streets too crowded for road vehicles to pass. Conversely, highways and motorways are types of roads, but few would refer to them as streets.
-
Alley
An alley or alleyway is a narrow lane, path, or passageway, often reserved for pedestrians, which usually runs between, behind, or within buildings in the older parts of towns and cities. It is also a rear access or service road (back lane), or a path or walk in a park or garden.A covered alley or passageway, often with shops, may be called an arcade. The origin of the word alley is late Middle English, from Old French: alee “walking or passage”, from aler “go”, from Latin: ambulare “to walk”.
-
Street (noun)
A paved part of road, usually in a village or a town.
“Walk down the street.”
-
Street (noun)
A road as above but including the sidewalks (pavements) and buildings.
“I live on the street down from Joyce Avenue.”
-
Street (noun)
The people who live in such a road, as a neighborhood.
-
Street (noun)
The people who spend a great deal of time on the street in urban areas, especially, the young, the poor, the unemployed, and those engaged in illegal activities.
-
Street (noun)
Street talk or slang.
-
Street (noun)
A great distance.
“He’s streets ahead of his sister in all the subjects in school.”
-
Street (noun)
Each of the three opportunities that players have to bet, after the flop, turn and river.
-
Street (noun)
Illicit, contraband, especially of a drug
“I got some pot cheap on the street.”
-
Street (noun)
Living in the streets.
“Street cat.”
“Street urchin.”
-
Street (noun)
By restriction, the streets that run perpendicular to avenues.
-
Street (adjective)
Having street cred; conforming to modern urban trends.
-
Street (verb)
To build or equip with streets.
-
Street (verb)
To eject; to throw onto the streets.
-
Street (verb)
To heavily defeat.
-
Street (verb)
To go on sale.
-
Street (verb)
To proselytize in public.
-
Alley (noun)
A narrow street or passageway, especially one through the middle of a block giving access to the rear of lots or buildings.
“The parking lot to my friend’s apartment building is in the alley.”
-
Alley (noun)
The area between the outfielders.
“He hit one deep into the alley.”
-
Alley (noun)
An establishment where bowling is played.
-
Alley (noun)
The extra area between the sidelines or tramlines on a tennis court that is used for doubles matches.
-
Alley (noun)
A walk or passage in a garden or park, bordered by rows of trees or bushes.
-
Alley (noun)
A passageway between rows of pews in a church.
-
Alley (noun)
Any passage having the entrance represented as wider than the exit, so as to give the appearance of length.
-
Alley (noun)
The space between two rows of compositors’ stands in a printing office.
-
Alley (noun)
A glass marble or taw.
-
Street (noun)
a public road in a city, town, or village, typically with houses and buildings on one or both sides
“45 Lake Street”
“the narrow, winding streets of Edinburgh”
-
Street (noun)
Wall Street.
-
Street (noun)
the roads or public areas of a city or town
“every week, fans stop me in the street”
-
Street (noun)
denoting someone who is homeless
“the street kids of the city”
-
Street (noun)
relating to the outlook, values, or lifestyle of those young people who are perceived as composing a fashionable urban subculture
“London street style”