Burma Road

Burma Road

1. A road in Burma which ran to the frontier with China, built in 1937–38 by the British in order to circumvent the Japanese blockade of China.
   • 1941 March, F. S. Bond, “The Railway Section of the Burma Trade Route”, in Railway Magazine, page 120:

     The international trade route known as the Burma Road has assumed a world-wide political significance and has been much in the limelight during the past few months.

Burma Road (plural Burma Roads)

1. (figuratively) An important military supply route.
   • 1942 March 9, “New Allied Life Line Across Africa”, in Geographic School Bulletin‎, volume 21, number 3:

     A “Burma Road” for Africa, or, in fact, a pair of “Burma Roads,” may develop from the current improvement of British and Free French roads across Central Africa.

   • 1947, Raj Narain Gupta, Iran: An Economic Study‎, page 145:

     Between January 1, 1943, and June 1, 1945, an average of slightly more than 17 trains plied daily between the two termini of the railway. During all this period, it served as the super-Burma Road to Russia.

   • 2007, Michael Rydelnik, Understanding the Arab-Israeli Conflict: What the Headlines Haven’t Told You, 2nd edition, →ISBN, page 102:

     The Israelis were able to break the stranglehold by bypassing the normal route to Jerusalem through building a “Burma Road” to resupply the city.

• Dwight L. Bolinger (December 1942), “Among the New Words”, in American Speech; republished as John Algeo, editor, Fifty Years Among the New Words: A Dictionary of Neologisms, 1941–1991, Cambridge University Press, 1991, →ISBN, page 93: “Burma Road. The road from Burma to China, used as a military supply-route. +fig. A supply-route of similar nature or importance.”
• “Burma Road”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “Burma Road”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.