(Now usually as two words.) A wide open road or highway, as opposed to a narrow lane or byway. From the former practice of treating it as a compound, it has often come to be the proper name of a street, as the Broadway in New York, Hammersmith, Stratford-le-Bow, etc.
a. 1613. Overbury, Crumms fr. K. James’ Table, Wks. (1856), 277. Where there is a broadway besides, what need I tread nere the borders of vice?
1876. Browning, Pacchiarotto, 92. Duty and love, one broadway, were the best.
b. attrib. Applied by Dryden to the more tolerant divines of the English Church who were for widening its basis, called before (line 160) ‘sons of latitude,’ and (line 187) ‘sons of breadth.’ Cf. the modern BROAD CHURCH.
1687. Dryden, Hind & P., III. 229. Your broad-way sons wou’d never be too nice To close with Calvin, if he paid their price.
