noun
chicane
shih-KAYN/ʃɪˈkeɪn/
An artificial sharp bend or series of bends designed to slow vehicles.
The driver brakes before the tight chicane halfway around the racing circuit.
Etymology
French chicane meant 'trickery,' and English used the word for gaining advantage through evasions. The roadway-obstacle meaning apparently shares this origin, though the evidence does not specify how the physical sense developed.
In context
then we should just have brick walls at the end of >> chicanees. Yeah. So if you go too wide in a chicane, you clamp into the brick wall.
More examples
- The new chicane slows cars near the grandstand.
- Two sharp turns form a chicane.
- She steers smoothly through the final chicane.
Forms
chicane · chicanes
Similar words
- curve
- Curve is any bend; chicane usually means a deliberately placed sharp bend or sequence that slows traffic.