tour
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A journey or route all the way around a particular place or area.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
tuurIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈtʊɹ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A journey or route all the way around a particular place or area
“They took an extended tour of Europe.”
A journey through a particular building, estate, country, etc.
A guided visit to a particular place, or virtual place.
A journey through a given list of places, such as by an entertainer performing concerts.
verb
intransitive
To make a journey
transitive
To make a circuit of a place
Make a tour of a certain place
“We toured the Provence this summer.”
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A journey or route all the way around a particular place or area
Used this way, tour is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
“They took an extended tour of Europe.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Usage note
It most often appears in the pattern “tour of …”, which is worth copying when you use it.
Natural pattern: tour of …
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
How It’s Used
The word’s distinct uses, one example each.
Journey / guidednoun
“They took an extended tour of Europe.”
Makeverb
“We toured the Provence this summer.”
More ways to use tour
- “They took an extended tour of Europe.”noun
- “We toured the Provence this summer.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
An industrial city in western France on the Loire River.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
Someone who travels for pleasure.
The business of providing services to tourists.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A French bicycle race for professional cyclists that lasts three weeks and covers about 3,000 miles.
A masterly or brilliant feat.
Large open car seating four with folding top.
A period of time spent in military service.
A guide who leads others on a tour.
An extended cultural tour of Europe taken by wealthy young Englishmen (especially in the 18th century) as part of their education.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.